


Should You Choose to Accept It

by whenyoudesertme (phrenk)



Category: Arashi (Band), Japanese Actor RPF, Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Community: ninoexchange, Multi, Other: See Story Notes, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-23 23:01:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 47,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7483335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrenk/pseuds/whenyoudesertme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino is a secret agent in a world where a mark on his arm means he'll know his soulmate as soon as they touch.  That doesn't mean he's going to wait quietly, not when he's already found the love of his life.  But when he meets someone else, what does that mean when it comes to destiny?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jade_lil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jade_lil/gifts).



> Contains implausible action scenes including violence, terrorists, and explosions; past minor character death resulting in an angsty back-story; peril and injury to main characters. Originally posted [here](http://ninoexchange.livejournal.com/76174.html) and reposted as myself [here](http://whenyoudesertme.livejournal.com/41085.html).
> 
> With thanks to Kino for the beta and also, wow, a whole lot more than that. Without you I wouldn't have finished this, and you saved me on that last day like the utter hero you are.

As he had every morning for the past six months, Nino woke up next to the love of his life.

He could tell from Sho's breathing (a kind word for snoring, currently) that said love of his life was still asleep, and so he spent a few minutes, as he had routinely done for the same half a year, wondering about someone else.

The rest of the time he was Sho's, through and through, with no regrets. If he'd really wanted to, he could even get rid of this daily moment, but honestly… it was something he wanted to keep.

Also, he was secretly a little superstitious, and part of him thought that if he didn't remember the person who'd saved his life, something bad might happen--his hero might die, or turn out to have been his imagination all along, or forget him completely in turn.

Thus Nino, who loved Sho with all his heart and intended to be with him as long as Sho would have him, took some time before Sho woke up to think about Ohno Satoshi.

Was Oh-chan well? Happy? Had he found a new job; had he found his soulmate?

Did he still think about that one heartwrenching kiss, like Nino did once--and only once--every day?

Though he wasn't especially religious, Nino sent well wishes out into the universe toward Ohno.

An ungraceful choking noise heralded Sho rejoining the world, and Nino smiled. He turned to his boyfriend and watched him wake up. Sho was tangled in the sheets, frowning and a little sweaty. His eyes were still closed, so Nino let every single foolish emotion show on his face--his soulmate tattoo hadn't sparked with Sho's, but this person in bed with him was his, destiny be damned.

Sho opened his eyes like he already had a grudge against the day. Then, blearily seeing Nino, he smiled. The fact that Sho found Nino's presence something to turn a bad morning good was something for which Nino was grateful.

He said kindly, "You were snoring again."

Sho rolled toward him on the bed like he was going to push Nino off. "I've never snored a day in my life."

Nino let Sho bump up against him and wrapped his arms around those strong shoulders. As usual, Sho was only in a tank top and underwear for sleeping, and Nino fussily kicked at the sheets until he could tangle his pajama-covered legs with Sho's bare ones.

"I don't snore," Sho insisted again, but he was already tucking himself closer to Nino, his cheek on Nino's shoulder. They lay there for a moment comfortably. Nino was also wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt because he got cold easily and Sho tended to steal the covers, and, not for the first time, he wished he could think himself naked. Sho's skin on his was the perfect way to start the day.

After a moment, he realized Sho was thinking about something. Usually this sort of situation would make Sho sleepy, or horny, or talkative--all of which Nino enjoyed--but right now Sho's breath was quick, his body tense.

Nino waited him out. It had taken some time to trust Sho again after they'd gotten back together, but he was starting to believe they were both in this for the long haul, no matter what happened with their soulmate marks.

Finally Sho said quietly, "Am I sharing you?"

Nino's arms tightened involuntarily, making Sho give a winded _oof_. Instead of letting go, Nino kept him there, holding him as close as he could get him, like he could transmit his commitment directly into Sho by touch. After they'd reunited, Nino had told Sho everything about the time they'd spent apart, and about Ohno, because he wasn't about to start over without complete honesty. Sho had been (adorably) embarrassed that he hadn't slept around like Nino had during that painful year, but people coped in different ways. The thing with Ohno was something else entirely, but Sho, after they'd finished hashing everything out, hadn't asked him about it again.

Nino didn't consider a few minutes out of twenty-four hours to be important to anyone but himself. He said, "If you want me to spend less time gaming, there are less roundabout ways to say so, Sho-chan."

Sho ignored this. His next words were firm, however gently he spoke them, and he said them as if he hadn't paused at all.

"Because I can."

"Sho-chan--" Nino started, trying not to panic.

"He saved your life," Sho said steadily. He pushed himself up on one elbow and looked down into Nino's eyes. "He's the reason you're here with me right now, in more ways than one. If you--"

"You're stuck with me. Stop trying to wiggle out of it."

Instead of smiling, Sho pressed his mouth to Nino's temple. "I'm not trying to wiggle out of anything. I'm saying I can share."

"Sounds like wiggling to me," Nino said grumpily. "What little time we have before work and you're spending it talking about someone else."

Sho sat up, making Nino suppress a little sound of disappointment, but then Sho's hands were working their way up Nino's shirt. It ended up involving more movement than Nino would've chosen, but Sho got the shirt off and lay back down next to him, his fingers tracing the familiar pattern of Nino's soulmate tattoo.

Nino lay there with his eyes closed, trying to control his breathing as Sho's touch skimmed down and around his left wrist, so light it gave him goosebumps. After a moment, he placed his other hand on Sho's and guided him. From long practice, Sho knew where Nino's mark was, but no one could see it but Nino himself. Not until he sparked.

"That thing's defective," he said hoarsely. "I've been thinking about getting it removed."

A childish bluff, considering there was no known way to do so--even losing an arm would mean the tattoo reappeared somewhere else--but Sho still drew in his breath sharply.

"Don't you dare. I want to see it someday--I want to see every part of you."

It hurt. It hurt to be together when a stupid mark on his arm was a constant reminder that it wasn't forever (except it was--it was forever--), but Nino was going to fight for it.

Instead of saying I love you, Nino said, "Feeling spry? There are some parts of me you've neglected lately, old man, and if you're quick I'll still have time for a few levels before we leave."

Sho grinned and let go of Nino's wrist. "Neglected?" he said, sounding delighted. "Which ones? I thought I got you all over last night but I'm willing to try again."

Despite himself, Nino flushed. If he concentrated, it was true that he could feel the slight soreness that came after a night when Sho had felt quite spry.

Then he laughed, because Sho had gotten tangled in his tank top, then Sho was free, and on top of him, and smiling at him like he'd never broken Nino's heart or told him he could be with someone else.

Nino loved him. He put his hands on Sho's bare shoulders (trying to forget that on the right shoulder there was, though he couldn't see it, a mark that meant someday Sho wouldn't be with him) and pulled Sho's mouth down to his.

"Be quick," he said again, after a heartstopping kiss.

Sho was already pulling down Nino's pajama pants. "I will," he promised, palming Nino through his underwear. "After all, we can't go to work without a good breakfast."

Nino wanted to roll his eyes, but that would involve looking away from his boyfriend, who was currently nuzzling him obscenely with a look on his face that made Nino feel lightheaded.

"Quicker than this," Nino said breathlessly, and instead of teasing, Sho obeyed, making short work of what little they had on before coming back to Nino's mouth.

Efficient with the ease of long practice, since mornings were a favorite time for this but neither wanted to wake up any too early, it wasn't long before Sho was between Nino's legs and pushing into him just like he had the night before.

Sho had a dorky look of concentration on his face and he filled Nino up in that way that had Nino forgetting to breathe.

Then Sho muttered, "Neglected, my ass," and Nino laughed out loud. He felt the hot drag of Sho pulling out to thrust home, but instead Sho hesitated. His eyes were on Nino's face--on Nino's smile. His heart was in his eyes.

Nino hid his own heart in a smirk and sighed lightly. "Too bad, there won't be time for breakfast. Coffee's enough for me anyway…"

Sho scowled at him, not at all fooled, but then he glanced over at the clock to confirm that there would, in fact, be time for Nino to take in a proper meal. Nino waited until Sho looked back down at him before lifting his eyebrows challengingly.

Narrowing his eyes and taking hold of Nino's hips, Sho fucked back into him, making Nino whimper at the feel of it. "I don't snore," Sho said, thrusting hard. "I'm not an old man, and you're not neglected, and by god, you're going to eat breakfast or I will hold you down and--"

Nino laughed again, but it came out high and breathy as he lifted his hands to the headboard and braced himself to meet Sho's pace.

He knew Sho was trying to make him laugh, and he also knew Sho was partially genuine, which made it even better. For a moment he could see the rest of his morning--the shower together before the video game, which he'd play until they were about to be late, and Sho all the way through, washing his back, complaining about his gaming, sneaking bites of breakfast into his mouth even though Nino nipped at his fingers.

Then all he could think of was the present, and Sho inside him, and Sho.

*

Nino was reluctantly grateful to have some food inside him during the interminable finance meeting, even if Sho had only managed burnt toast. He was also glad to have something pleasant to think about instead of the droning about the budget--he sat there in his swivel chair with his colleagues around him and kept his face utterly blank as he relived the morning's exertions with Sho.

It helped that Sho was the one in charge of the boring finance meeting, though it did mean he had to think about something entirely unpleasant every once in a while in order to keep himself presentable.

After one particularly long-winded explanation about the merit of spreadsheets in assessing one's spending, Nino's boss broke in irritably from the back of the room.

"What Sakurai-san is saying, for those of you who aren't listening, is to be efficient. If you can do it with one bullet, don't fire twice. If you borrow jewelry for yourself or a target, bring it back safely to storage. If you can't avoid crashing the Porsche, for god's sake, try harder."

Nino straightened in his seat, thoughts pulled from Sho to that one car he had maybe kind of totaled. Their legendary leader, Matsumoto Jun, might be kinder than he looked, and he'd never begrudge an agent anything it took to keep them safe, but that didn't change the fact that Nino's disastrous mission six months ago had cost the agency a great deal of money, not to mention all the fallout that still required constant attention from the public relations people upstairs. All of those personal repercussions didn't take into account the repercussions that were still being felt worldwide, as well as here in Japan--it would be a long time before they recovered.

But even Nino couldn't make all of it his fault, and Jun wouldn't want him to.

Silhouetted against the projector screen still showing one of his many spreadsheets, Sho nodded respectfully at Jun.

"Matsumoto-san makes some excellent points. If you think of it is a game, perhaps you'll find it easier," he said, meeting Nino's eyes blandly for an instant. "You score more points the less money you waste. Thank you."

They clapped half-heartedly, all of them except Nino's handler, who was blatantly asleep. Nino elbowed Aiba as he clapped until he heard a muffled snort of surprise followed by hasty applause.

He smirked at Sho, was was obliviously shaking Jun's hand like between the two of them they'd solved world hunger. But when Sho came over to sit down next to him, his presentation complete, Nino gave him a thumbs-up. Sho might be long-winded, but he knew what he was talking about, and in his own way he fought just as hard for their agency as Nino did out in the field. It was because of Sho and his subordinates that the agency had money to finance Nino's equipment, as well as the constant training agents required, and both his equipment and training had saved Nino's life more times than he could count.

Jun flicked the lights back on and gestured for the projector to be turned off.

"As you're all observant people," he started, eyes severe on Aiba in a way that had Nino's handler squirming in his seat, "you'll be curious why I'm here at Sakurai-san's presentation. In fact, there is another reason you're gathered together today. Last week our newest round of graduates completed their initial training, and all of you know what an achievement that is. I would like you to join me in welcoming them as full agents starting today."

At an elegant gesture from Jun, Sho's assistant opened the door and people in suits began to file in, looking nervous. Nino glanced down at his notebook (in which he wrote songs he'd never finish in cypher when he was trying to keep awake during meetings) and began to scribble a note to Sho. Sho, of course, was studiously listening to Jun give a speech to the new agents.

Nino's fine-tuned ears caught the moment when his attention was required again, and he elbowed Aiba just in case his friend had nodded off again.

Jun was saying solemnly, "If everyone could stand to show our sincerity, I'll be greeting each new agent personally. Ah, Sakurai-san? As you're a manager as well, perhaps you could come to the front with me."

Sho stood and bowed as Jun began shaking the hands of each of his newly accepted employees. There were only three of them, probably whittled down from a training class of at least ten, and two of them were women. One was tall, with short hair and a restless expression, while the other was compact and fierce-looking, like a wrestler. The last new agent was a small man, but Sho walked by him as Nino glanced at his face, so he didn't get to assess him properly.

Starting down the line after Jun, Sho shook the tall agent's hand, smiling with charming professionalism, then moved to the smaller woman, whose grip made him flinch. Then he laughed, making her fierce face ease into a grin, and that's when a move from her other side had Nino's eyes shifting back to the man next to her.

He froze. Even when they'd only met once, even though it had been half a year already since then, he recognized that sleepy face.

*

_Six months earlier._

The first time Nino met Ohno, he was complaining about Sho.

"For my own good," he grumbled. "Am I a child? I'm grownup enough to die on the job, but I can't be with him without permission from an obnoxious bunch of skin cells?"

The bomb under his swift and careful hands couldn't speak in return. It did, however, continue ticking away the last minutes of his life--11:59. 11:58. 11:57.

Nino hesitated. It was tempting to let the clock run down, considering the circumstances. He was alone. He was trapped. He was going to die regardless, so how much did he really care about the destruction of other people's property?

He wiped his sweaty face with one gloved hand and got back to work. If nothing else, trying to disarm the bomb kept him from getting too weepy.

"Sho…"

It took some effort, but he pushed back the memory of Sho breaking his heart and let himself wallow in remembering how it had felt to wake up next to someone he trusted completely, who played along with his capriciousness and got huffy when teased about the apartment's multiple aroma diffusers, who got shy when Nino asked for a kiss but felt no embarrassment about cuddling close in the afterglow and saying things--

\--saying things that weren't worth thinking about if Nino wanted to keep it together. It was possible it was past the point of that, though, because his face was wet from more than perspiration and he was only just realizing he'd been talking to himself for the past several minutes.

"At least this proves these stupid marks are defective," he muttered. "I'm about to get blown up and look, the one person I was fated to meet and love and be with forever and whatever… where are they? I told you it was broken, Sho-chan, and now look--I'm about to be proved right."

It didn't feel all that great to be right. At least if his mark had sparked with Sho's he would know that he'd get to see him in his next life, even if they'd be different people or however it actually worked.

Instead, he had nothing but a defective soulmate mark and an ex-boyfriend whose smile was all he could think about. 7:43. 7:42. Nino's hands slowed.

_"--Hello? Hello? How the hell can I talk to you with this..."_

Nino froze. The town was evacuated. He hadn't even heard from his team for an hour, which was a thought he couldn't give the proper worry considering his imminent death. The voice coming through his earpiece was a stranger's.

"I can hear you," he said slowly.

 _"Oh good!"_ the voice replied, far too cheerfully. _"I'm--"_

"You need to run," Nino interrupted. "Head north as fast as you can. If the keys are still in the van, then take it and--"

_"I'm not in the van anymore. I'm on my way to you."_

"There is no way to me," Nino said, trying not to watch the clock as his hands flew with renewed purpose over the exposed wires of the bomb. "They sealed everything--I'm not leaving this room. Believe me, I've checked every potential exit and--"

 _"But as long as you stop the bomb, you'll just have to wait, right? I'll get in eventually,"_ the stranger said calmly.

Nino gritted out, "There are two bombs. The control box I'm working on connects to one that's the start of a chain reaction that'll level the whole city. And one's here in this room, with me."

That seemed to get through to his would-be rescuer. It was probably too late for both of them now, but Nino had to try.

 

"Get out of the building, get out of the city. You have to go now or you're going to die."

_"If we're going to die, you must be my soulmate. Oh hey, a map! But I think I'm going to save you, so just work on the bombs--"_

"I don't have time to disarm both!" Nino cried, at his limit from exhaustion and grief and--as caused by this weirdo who came from nowhere--crippling confusion.

 _"Then pick the other one, 'cause I'm in the ducts--"_ An enormous sneeze in his ear made Nino flinch.

"Then this one will level the city with us in it, you idiot, I can't just--"

Nino stopped. Precious seconds ticked off the clock--off both clocks--as he thought. The chain reaction was planned to start from the docks and work north to the convention center where several important international diplomats would have been trapped without the efforts of his team. (His missing team, who'd left him, or been made to leave--) He was halfway between the two at the bank that'd been co-opted by the terrorists, and maybe, just maybe...

He got up ( _"Was that your knees!?"_ ) and raced for the other bomb.

"What kind of person says he's your soulmate before you even meet," he said, mostly to check on his new acquaintance's progress without giving away his extremely precarious newfound hope for their survival.

 _"Logic,"_ came the low voice, sounding out of breath. _"I haven't sparked yet either, and my mark's been itching like crazy lately. If I'm about to die, and you're the only one here, then--"_

"--Or we're both going to survive," Nino said, barely able to believe it. "Holy shit."

A small laugh huffed in his ear. _"Win-win."_

"I'm flattered, but that's not at all how I would describe this situation." He worked desperately at the wires, forgoing every possible bit of caution in his bid to beat the clock.

0:31. 0:30. 0:29.

Nino cut one last wire.

0:29.

0:29. Despite himself, despite knowing that he had checked every door, every window, every duct he could use to get out, he gave a small sob of relief as he realized the clock had stopped.

He stood up, smiling distantly as his joints creaked again, and looked across the room at the control panel of the system of bombs that was about to level three-quarters of the buildings in the city.

0:21. 0:20. 0:19.

Nino closed his eyes and pictured the map of the building he and his teammates had stolen before he'd infiltrated it.

There was no way out.

"You need to turn around and run as fast as you can," he said. He meant it, but he also selfishly wanted to hear another human's voice before the end. "How are you even here? We scanned the city for heat signatures after the evacuation."

No answer. 0:09. 0:08. 0:07.

"Get out of here," he tried again, voice raspy. It was bad enough to die, bad enough to know he'd never see Sho again, now some obstinate stranger was going to die trying to save him. "Head north--it's your only chance to outrun the bombs."

0:02. 0:01. 0:00.

He heard the distant boom of the first bomb exploding just as someone fell through the ceiling and landed in a dusty heap at his feet.

Nino stared down at his rescuer. He was a man of about his size with a dazed look on his face, still clutching the van's walky-talky.

"Are you really my soulmate?" he heard himself ask, but it came out quietly enough he could pretend he hadn't said it.

"I was working in the freezer," the other man croaked, spitting out dust. "At the convenience store."

Breaking out of his own daze, Nino moved urgently to drag a table across the room to help them back up into the duct.

"That duct wasn't supposed to be there," he said to himself, yanking the small stranger up by one arm and maneuvering them both up onto the table. "It wasn't on the map--"

"Was too," was his answer, and Nino spared half a second to look at the bedraggled paper being held out to him.

It was the evacuation map from the door by the exit to the bank. On it, clearly marked, was the duct leading from the back basement office where they were to a wall vent in the lobby.

The terrorists had papered over this last duct and changed the digitally-stored blueprints, knowing the high-tech capabilities of the agents pursuing them, but neither side had thought to remember the old paper map probably in plastic at the front door for the last fifteen years.

Another boom thudded out somewhere not nearly far enough away. Nino made a step with his hands and helped the other man climb back up into the duct before following with the sort of athletic leap that had kept him comfortably ahead of every other agent in his class during training.

"My soulmate wouldn't be the type to gloat," he sniffed as he crawled through the duct. It was dim, and they were probably still about to die, but even so he couldn't help appreciating the view of his rescuer on his hands and knees from behind.

His complaint was ignored. "I'm Ohno Satoshi. I gather you're Nino, from what you were saying earlier--does your boyfriend really sound like that?"

Nino flushed, remembering acting out both sides of a particularly irritating conversation where Sho had nobly tried to convince Nino to give him up for the sake of his own future happiness.

"Ex-boyfriend," he said, not even pretending not to flirt considering this potential relationship would likely last a matter of minutes. "Convenient, right? No pesky morality to get in the way of our dying embrace."

Ohno didn't laugh. He said simply, "Awesome."

It was that deadpan, one-word response that broke through Nino's haze of panic and adrenaline and made him realize that this person, this man with the silly reactions and calm voice, who'd rushed toward him instead of away from a bomb, who had an ass that simply didn't quit--Ohno might actually, really, joking aside, be--

He might be the soulmate Sho'd been adamant existed.

Then they were out of the duct and sprinting to the lobby doors, and the cool night air hit Nino's face with the shock of life and hope and an unfortunate amount of upcoming physical exertion.

Except obviously--

"Which car should we take?" he asked Ohno nonchalantly. The effect was spoiled somewhat by the way he jumped at the sound of the next explosion. It was much closer than the last one.

"Blue," Ohno said simply. By some twist of fate, he'd chosen the car Nino came in, though the keys were still with his handler. Nino grabbed Ohno's hand and pulled him along toward the sleek blue car at the curb, wishing their touch were skin to skin so they'd know about their marks but aware they should put that off until they'd actually survived this hellscape of explosions. The sky had started raining ash.

Nino drove them north in the hotwired car as the city crumbled behind them. Smoke rose in his rearview mirror and the ground shook, but somehow he and Ohno were holding hands again. It was ridiculous, and he didn't know who'd started it, but they were talking like they were in entirely different circumstances. As if he were hallucinating, he found they were play-acting like they were on a date.

Sho had always been charmed by Nino's playfulness, but it was new to find someone who seemed to sense where Nino's weird brain was going and play along and up the ante all at once. By the time they had the city outskirts in sight, they were to the point where Nino, in the role of the doting boyfriend, was trying to coax Ohno to stop with him at the nearest love hotel, while Ohno, who had a bit of a foreign accent for no reason Nino could name, was being coy and making noises about wanting to go home with him and meet his family first.

"And I need to know you can support me," he said, voice lilting even higher. "After all, my job just blew up."

Nino, despite wanting to keep in character, burst out laughing. He wished he could cover his over-revealing smile, but he needed one hand to drive and Ohno was holding the other.

"It's not funny," Ohno sulked, not slipping even for a second. "I'd been working there for eight years, like any good soulmate would know."

"A capable soulmate like you can find a new job," Nino said fawningly, casting his eyes over just in time to see Ohno smirk slightly. "You should put map-reading on your resume, and climbing through ducts."

"Actually," Ohno said, voice settling back down into its normal register unexpectedly. "I've been recruited for something new. I wasn't sure I was going to try for it, but if--"

He broke off as the latest blast had buildings collapsing on the street ahead. The bombs were still behind them--though they were closer every time no matter how fast Nino drove--but the buildings were shaking themselves to pieces from what felt like earthquakes. Nino knew it was man-made malice.

"If we survive, you mean," Nino said lightly, and he gripped Ohno's hand hard, wishing again he could feel that warmth instead of his glove. He should have told Sho he loved him no matter what Sho said. He slammed his foot down as hard as he could on the gas pedal.

He darted the car through the falling debris like they were in a video game, because to turn in any other direction was to turn toward another explosion. It was strangely satisfying to hear Ohno finally give in to open alarm--the yelp at every crash that barely missed them only made Nino drive more recklessly. There was no place for caution now; their survival depended on Nino's skill and sheer luck.

And, maybe, on the fact that they hadn't touched yet. Though his dedication to Sho made Nino dubious, not to mention rebellious, he knew that throughout the century or so since the soulmate marks had started showing up on people there hadn't been a single marked person who died before they met their match.

If Ohno was his match, all he had to do was hold off on touching him until they made it out of the city and they'd be safe.

Still, Nino wasn't about to put his trust in fate, especially when a part of his mind was dubious whether Ohno's theory was really how it worked. When he saw an opening--though no one but a highly trained daredevil would see a fallen metal roof as anything but something to be avoided--he took it.

"You're not--" Ohno said breathlessly, and Nino nearly laughed at how the disbelief in his voice was mixed with reproach.

It was too late. Nino pushed the car as fast as it would go and they hit the sloping roof at over a hundred miles an hour.

Then they were airborne.

They sailed over the median as Nino let out a defiant yell. Ohno, apparently shocked speechless, clenched Nino's hand like he wanted to go back in time and grab the wheel.

Midway through their impromptu flight, the last of the bombs exploded behind them, filling the world with shrapnel and flames. It seemed to make the car go impossibly faster--

\--before it crashed down on the exit ramp of the freeway, landing off-balance with a body-jarring crunch of wheels and frame. The momentum was too much. The car flipped, and Ohno found his voice in a short shriek of terror. Nino nearly knocked his head against the steering wheel. The car flipped again.

It was upside-down when it stopped rolling, and it shook constantly with the fall of debris.

Nino peeked out the window, body aching. They'd made it out of the city. He might have totaled the car, and rocks might fall like rain for however much longer, but they'd made it out safely.

Unless--

"Oh-chan," he croaked and turned his head painfully. Ohno hung limp in his seatbelt, one hand still clutched in Nino's. Nino felt like his heart stopped beating.

Then Ohno mumbled, "You drove us off a _roof._ "

Nino choked on a relieved laugh. "To be fair, the roof was on the ground. I bet we didn't even clear fifteen feet."

"A roof!" Ohno said, aggrieved. "I'm never getting a licence. Driving is terrifying."

Nino stared at him, eyes wide. He was about a hair's breadth away from grabbing this ridiculous person's face and laying the kiss of the century on him. "You don't think maybe it was the bombs…? Just so you know, when you're driving, there usually aren't any bombs, Oh-chan."

"Says you," Ohno said nonsensically. He reached for his seatbelt.

"You might want to--" Nino said hastily, but then Ohno was dropping with a pained noise to the roof of the car, now flipped to become the floor. Luckily the car had been a bit crunched by their landing and Ohno didn't have all that far to fall.

Nino noticed that Ohno still kept hold of his hand, even so. He couldn't believe that Sho had been right, at least about this--there'd been someone out there for him, and as soon as they sparked, they'd be together forever.

Pushing down thoughts of Sho, Nino gave himself up to destiny and released his own seatbelt.

" _Ouch._ "

"Yeah," Ohno said dreamily. "Think it's safe to leave the car?"

Nino looked over from where he'd most likely just broken his neck. "Judging by how often boulders keep landing on us, I'd say not."

Ohno laughed, repeating to himself, "Boulders," then kept laughing.

Though he had been exaggerating, Nino hadn't really been trying to be funny. He watched as Ohno cracked up for a solid minute over his non-joke, still holding on to Nino's hand.

As soon as Ohno calmed down, Nino said experimentally, "Boulders." Ohno's eyes shot to his, then crinkled helplessly as he laughed without any sound, just little shudders of amusement that made Nino want to kiss those eye crinkles, that mouth, the involuntary bob of his Adam's apple as he laughed and laughed.

Purposefully, Nino let go of Ohno's hand. He was on his back on the ceiling of a wrecked Porsche next to a stranger who'd just saved his life. An entire city had blown up behind them. In all respects except loss of life, the terrorists had won.

But in that one moment, who cared? He was about to find his soulmate, the one person he'd be with throughout this life, the one he'd find in his next life, and the one after that, forever.

He pulled off his glove and held his hand out to Ohno.

Sprawled there in the wreckage, eyes a little wet from laughing, Ohno smiled at him and took his hand.

Their touch was warm, and it felt right. There was nothing else.

"This can't be happening," Nino said desperately. "This can't be happening to me _again._ "

"Nino," Ohno said. "No, I thought for sure…"

Nino closed his eyes and lifted their joined hands to his forehead as he tried not to cry. He'd met Sho, he loved Sho, their lack of fate ignored. Sho'd left him. He'd met Ohno, been sure he was the one, and how could he have been so sure so soon without it being fate?

And now he was alone again.

"You're not alone," Ohno said.

Nino's eyes opened in astonishment. "Oh-chan--"

Ohno, dusty, upside-down, his face fatigued with recent terror, just smiled at him. "Go find him. Your Sho-chan."

"You saved me," Nino said slowly, holding Ohno's eyes.

"You love him. Plus you almost died, so he'll take you back, don't you think?"

Nino didn't say anything. He could imagine it, could imagine going back to Sho and convincing him that destiny was for other people and he and Sho were for each other. What he couldn't imagine was leaving Ohno behind.

"The van's doors were open," Ohno said. "I thought I heard a voice, so I went in--the whole city was empty, do you know how weird that was? Like a movie. No one was in the van, either, but you were talking--you'd talked for a long time before I figured out how to talk back. Even though you thought you were just talking to a bomb, all you talked about was him."

He was silent a moment, his face serious. Nino's back was hurting horribly but he couldn't have moved in that moment if the world depended on it.

"I couldn't leave you," Ohno concluded. "Nobody could have left you if they'd heard you."

"That's not true," Nino said, his voice strange even to himself. "You… it could only have been you."

Ohno scooted over, twisting his body around to try to make his way across to Nino. Uncurling himself painfully, Nino stretched his legs out over the hanging headrest of the front seat and turned to find Ohno there, ready, his eyes dark and intent.

"Go find him," he said again, but he leaned in and kissed Nino like he loved him, like they'd sparked, like they'd be together in this life and forever after.

They kissed until a van pulled up beside the ruined Porsche, and even then Nino could barely let go.

It was a different kind of acting from their pseudo-date, and far less fun, to pretend to be strangers in front of Nino's team. But it was also the same--it was him and it was Ohno, who it seemed at moments could read his mind, and they played off each other like they'd been born to it.

Then an ambulance came and took Ohno away, and Nino went and found Sho.

*

_Present day._

It was him.

Ohno Satoshi, the man who'd saved his life. Who'd made him laugh, and been thoughtlessly brave--who wasn't his soulmate, but had kissed him anyway.

He was a new agent; he'd be working alongside Nino, together.

Sho was about to shake his hand. Skin to skin, Ohno and Sho were about to touch.

With one of those sudden moments of clarity that couldn't be explained, Nino understood. He loved Sho, but their tattoos hadn't sparked the first time they'd touched, so they could never be easy together, knowing it wasn't fated to be. Then he'd been recklessly sure that Ohno was his soulmate, the soulmate Sho had left Nino in order to free him to find. Yet when Nino and Ohno had touched, nothing had happened.

As Sho moved toward the last agent in line, the unassuming man in the ill-fitting suit, the person who'd risked death to save a stranger's life, Ohno who hadn't even realized Nino was there, Nino saw it all.

The love of his life was going to spark with this second almost-soulmate. After so much worry about when Nino's tattoo would spark, and whether he'd really be able to give up being with Sho, he'd nearly forgotten to worry about the opposite scenario.

He'd already believed it, but he thought it again with all his soul: destiny was heartless.

Sho reached out his hand, and Ohno took it.

Nino closed his eyes and swayed on his feet, feeling his life fall apart. He was going to congratulate them. He was going to smile. He'd let Ohno take his place in the apartment--he'd find a way to keep this job he loved where he'd have to see them both. He'd give them up and watch them be happy.

Together. He thought he might pass out.

"Nino," Aiba hissed behind him. "Are you all right?"

He took a step back, shamelessly encouraging Aiba to put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, and waited for the cries of excitement and delight that came when two soulmates met for the first time and their tattoos sparked.

Instead he heard Jun's brisk voice say, "We'll take a ten-minute break. Be back on time with your case files in order. Dismissed."

Nino opened his eyes. Aiba still had a calming hand on his shoulder, but Nino only had eyes for Sho, who was shuffling papers together on the table in front of them. He looked unchanged.

He searched for Ohno, and found him still at the front of the room next to the other new employees.

His eyes were wide on Nino.

Abandoning his notebook and his pride, Nino turned around and made a break for it from the door at the back of the room, feeling like he might throw up.

Sho and Ohno hadn't sparked either.

*

Though it wasn't exactly normal for him to be so melodramatic, or at least he hoped it wasn't, Nino huddled in the locker room of the training gym for a while and tried to calm down. He should be feeling this upset if his boyfriend had sparked with someone else, not because he hadn't.

To distract himself from his inconvenient emotions, as well as the ever-clearer fact that his sense for what was and what wasn't destiny was disastrously off-base, Nino tried to figure out who was going to be the one to come find him.

He decided to look at it like he was placing a bet on a horse race, and he saw four promising options.

Number one, his overly-observant boss, the dashing Matsumoto Jun, would stride through the door and drag him back to the meeting, and probably later he'd track Nino down and ask awkward, kind questions about his emotional state.

Number two, his friend since childhood and current handler, the surprisingly emotionally intelligent Aiba Masaki, would peek in before sweeping him up in a hug and uttering many unnecessary (but doubtless strangely comforting) platitudes.

Number three, his non-soulmate boyfriend, Sakurai Sho… and number four, the also-not-his-soulmate Ohno Satoshi.

Of course, there was a chance it'd be another agent, or a messenger from an irate Jun, but Nino was limiting it to those four horses, and the part of him that wasn't occupied in mental hyperventilation over his near miss was debating just who it would be.

He'd just decided his bet was on Aiba when the door opened and Sho came inside.

Nino knew it wasn't fair, but he found himself saying, "First neglectful and now disappointing. What a stellar day for you."

He felt guilty about his unwarranted sharpness, but Sho knew him too well--his warm gaze looked right through Nino's bluster and found the unhappiness at the heart of it.

And because he was Sho, and horribly kind, he let Nino have a moment to pull himself together before he pushed for any answers.

"Aiba-chan said you might need me," he said neutrally. He held out a cup of coffee in a styrofoam cup. "I thought maybe you just needed caffeine."

"Someone kept feeding me toast instead of coffee," Nino said, trying to compose himself. "The toast was simply superb, though."

"Shut up already, I know it was burnt," Sho laughed, and Nino set the coffee aside and shifted closer down the bench he was sitting on to press his forehead against Sho's hip. Sho was wearing a fancy suit that shouldn't have been welcoming, but all Nino felt was comfort.

"How bad is it?" Sho asked quietly, tangling his fingers in Nino's hair. "Need me to beat some sense into someone? 'Cause I know this secret agent guy. Not very big, but he gets the job done."

Nino couldn't resist. "Sounds like the tagline of your sex tape, Sho-chan."

Sho snorted, unoffended. With how Nino reacted to him in bed, there was no reason for him ever to feel inadequate. "Are you going to tell me what's going on, Kazu?"

He sat down next to Nino and let Nino lean into him even harder.

One deep breath later, Nino forced it out. "It was already a lot, seeing Oh-chan again, and then…"

"That's Oh-chan?" Sho said, jumping a little under Nino's touch. " _Your_ Oh-chan?"

"When you shook hands with him, I thought he might be yours," Nino admitted.

"But that's ridiculous," Sho said immediately. He still sounded startled, but his words were sure. "I've touched him countless times already."

Nino leaned back and goggled at his boyfriend. "What!?"

"He used to work at that convenience store down the street," Sho said. It was clear from his deliberate tone that only half of his mind was on the explanation. The other half, Nino had no doubt, was on the confession about his fear that Sho and Ohno would spark. "He sold me all those half-price box meals you like, before he moved away. The food at that convenience store hasn't been the same since…"

"He can cook?" Nino asked. It was emphatically not what he'd meant to say, but he was interested in the answer despite himself.

"I don't know," Sho said, surprised into full attention. He'd probably already worked through whatever he was working through about Ohno's reappearance and Nino's admission. Sho's brain was entirely too quick sometimes. "I don't think he made them, though. The first time he found me trying to figure out what to buy, because they had ones you'd eat and they had ones that were half-price, but none that were both."

"I think between the two of us we can afford full price, Sho-chan."

Sho laughed, eyes crinkling. "Believe me, I know; you're the one who seems to think we'll starve if we don't scrimp and save."

Nino crossed his arms over his chest and sniffed emphatically, refusing to dignify that with a response.

"Ohno-kun found me--apparently I'd been waffling for a while--and offered to tag one half-price a day early. And after that I always went when he was there and he always kindly did me that favor--"

"And now he just happens to work here, coincidentally?" Nino said sharply.

Sho blinked. "No, of course not. I recruited him."

Nino blinked back at him. "Again, for the record: _what!?_ "

"Hey, can we skip to the part where you nearly had a heart attack because Ohno-kun and I shook hands? I'm not sure if I should find it sweet or worrying, by the way." He hesitated. Scooting closer to Nino on the bench, he finally said, "It's probably both. I'm sorry you were so scared."

"Scared?" Nino scoffed, but there was no force behind his words. Sho's very nearness was calming. "I was thinking about what color boutonniere to wear to your wedding."

"I love you," Sho said gently. He reached out and pulled Nino in, his hand warm on the back of Nino's neck.

Nino let him. There was no chance at resisting, no way to fight through the soothing touch and ask more questions--there was only Sho and his unconditional affection. Then they were kissing, and Nino focused in on it to the exclusion of everything else.

It stayed slow and sweet, but Nino's breathing was ragged by the time Sho pulled away.

"By the way," Sho said quietly. "Matsumoto-san said if you're more than five minutes late to the next meeting, you're doing every team's paperwork for the next month."

Nino jerked back, eyes wide. "And you didn't lead with that because?" He looked at his watch and flinched. "My god, Sho-san, I'm five minutes late already!"

Sho smiled crookedly. "Time for one more?" he asked, already leaning in.

He got a faceful of Nino, all teeth and barely-averted nose, in the crudest imitation of a kiss. Then Nino was out the door at a run.

Further kissing--and a chance at more answers--would be had when there wasn't a mountain of paperwork on the line.

*

Nino slid into a seat under Jun's disapproving eye. In his rush it was mere luck that he didn't end up sitting next to Ohno.

His erstwhile rescuer was across the room at a different table between his fellow new recruits. He was staring at Nino like he'd never blinked in his life and wasn't about to start now.

Nino took a break from making a cowed expression at Jun in order to stick his tongue out at Ohno, then grin. Sure, Ohno's appearance might constitute a (hopefully) minor crisis to Nino, and sure, he had reservations about working with the guy, but it was still _Ohno._ They might not be soulmates, but there was some affinity between them that Nino couldn't deny even if he wanted to.

Ohno's face did a funny little flinching thing that made Nino's smile more genuine, and then Ohno was smiling back at him like his thought processes had been restarted at least enough to register where he was and what was happening.

"As I was saying," came Jun's voice loud in Nino's ear.

Nino jumped about a foot and turned--mouth still stretched in a ghastly attempt at keeping his smile--to see his boss extremely close.

He said swiftly, holding the grimace-smile, "I apologize endlessly for my tardiness of exactly five minutes and no more, Matsumoto-san!"

Jun held his eyes for a moment, then kept walking around the room like nothing untoward had occurred.

"As I was saying, the mission is currently underway to find and decode transmissions relating to the whereabouts of the group of terrorists we've been tracking since the bombings. In a move that I'm sure will surprise everyone, the United States military has not chosen to share any of its information about this mission with us, despite the fact that the terrorist attack occurred on our soil. No doubt they are doing what they think is best, and, as usual, we're in no position to argue. However, we must be ready when the time comes. I've called in every favor I have, and the result is that we, Japan, will have a part in the mission to find and capture the people who struck at our country, as soon as the information comes through. Everyone in this room will have a role to play."

He lifted his eyebrows at them. "I trust you will not let me down."

"Sir, no sir!" everyone shouted, Nino included. He might doodle during meetings and make out with Sho in the locker room on the clock, but it was a point of pride for him that he worked for Matsumoto Jun. No one worked harder or with more passionate integrity than his boss. Nino would've stepped in front of a bullet for him without hesitation.

"On a lighter note," Jun continued, though his face didn't seem to get the memo and was still in super-intense mode, "Now that our training class has completed the preliminaries and been accepted into our ranks, I can finally publicly recognize a great service done for us during the very attacks that we've been working to clean up for the last six months."

Nino perked up cautiously. His team had succeeded in evacuating the city before the bombs went off, and though they'd been diverted from his aid by multiple false SOS transmissions, he himself had managed to survive despite every likelihood of an opposite outcome. Jun had been explicit in his gratitude to them more than once, but rarely in front of other agents due to the complicated nature of their success.

An entire city was rubble. Many, many families had lost their homes and livelihoods. Their country was only now beginning to recover from the chaos and fear.

Jun's acknowledgement meant something, but they weren't about to start bragging about the outcome of the mission, not even to each other.

Jun went to the cabinet in the corner and rummaged around behind the laptops and accessories. He emerged after a beat holding a battered old Polaroid camera.

"Ohno Satoshi-san," he said, gesturing him up to the front.

Ohno shot up out of his chair, then just stood there, looking nervous. Jun gestured again, patience waning.

When Ohno was finally at Jun's side, looking very small but holding his facial expression to impassivity, Jun began.

"In the matter under discussion, one civilian, Ohno Satoshi-san, showed remarkable bravery and ingenuity in the face of incredible odds. In large part because of his exemplary conduct, our very own Ninomiya Kazunari is still breathing today. Now that Ohno-san is officially one of us," Jun said, grinning widely, "let us thank him properly."

Ohno's eyes were very round. Nino stifled a smile with some difficulty.

"Get up here, Nino," Jun said, and Nino's good feelings faded fast.

"I've been thanked," he said, then corrected himself quickly, "I've already thanked Ohno-san, sir."

"Now."

Nino walked to the front of the room--to Ohno--as slowly as he dared.

Jun ignored his pace and said genially, "Now we all of us in this room know that the nature of our agency means we can't, for instance, take out an ad in the paper or have a ceremony in public. But there is one tradition, a high honor, that I feel is warranted in this case."

Despite his best intentions, Nino reached Jun's side. Then Jun stepped away and Nino and Ohno stood face to face for the first time in many months. Ohno's hair was darker now, and shorter, like he'd let it grow out and cut off the dyed part. It was spiky, too, as if he'd used something to make it stick up, or maybe he'd just been so nervous before his first real day at his new job that he'd run his hands through it so much he looked a bit like a hedgehog. A very cute hedgehog with sleepy eyes and a mouth that Nino remembered all too well--

"Good," Jun said, looking with a critical eye at the tableau they presented him from a few steps away. He backed up further and looked through the camera at them. "Now shake hands and smile for the picture, ready, set…"

Ohno reached out his hand hesitantly, his eyes on Nino's face. Nino looked down, then emphatically turned to face the camera. Even with that one glance, the impression of Ohno's weirdly pretty hands was in front of his eyes like an aftershock.

He took Ohno's hand without meeting his eyes, then smiled as best he could. It still felt right to touch Ohno. It didn't seem to matter that he knew it wasn't.

Ohno must have smiled as well, because Jun took the picture successfully.

As the other agents cheered, and Jun waved the developing picture around like a flag, Nino stood there, his face averted as he continued to hold Ohno's hand. He had no doubt that no one in the room was reading his face correctly and could only be glad that Sho wasn't there.

Feeling Ohno's heartbeat like it was his own, he knew that Sho would have seen the softening of his eyes, the slight parting of his lips, and known them for what they were. Nino very much needed his hand to let go of Ohno.

"All right, the picture is ready!" Jun said, drawing Nino's attention. The photograph was handed to the nearest agent, who happened to be Toma.

Toma duly looked at and dipped his head with a broad grin, both a thank you and a celebration in miniature. He handed it to one of Ohno's training mates, Eikura, Nino thought, who hesitantly did the same.

The picture made its way around the room. About halfway around, Nino managed to yank his hand away.

Finally the picture came to his hands, and he had to laugh a little. He'd been caught forcing the cheesiest grin imaginable while Ohno looked like a deer in the headlights. He handed it to Ohno, who snorted.

When Jun held out a hand for the picture, only Nino was close enough to see Ohno's fingers curl around it for a moment like he didn't want to let it go. Then the picture was back in their boss's hands.

"Ninomiya-san," Jun said grandly. "The blowtorch, if you please."

Nino's eyes shot helplessly to Ohno's face. He was rewarded by the most delightfully bewildered expression, and he was grinning as he went over to the cabinet to retrieve the miniature blowtorch within.

He brought it back to Jun, who'd pulled over a trashcan.

"To Ohno Satoshi," Jun said gravely, and everyone in the room echoed him with as much seriousness as they could muster when most of them knew what was coming.

Jun held up the picture. Then he took the blowtorch and used it to set the picture on fire.

Nino's head swiveled involuntarily again to Ohno, whose jaw was nearly on the floor. Something funny happened as the photograph burned, however--Ohno's shock turned by stages to something pleased, and by the time the last ashes had fallen into the trash he was actually clapping.

Nino turned and lent a deadpan look to his boss. "Your sentiment is staggering, Matsumoto-san, as ever."

"I liked it," Ohno's soft voice put in unexpectedly. "I feel very thanked, Mach--Matsumoto-san."

"You can't even say his name properly," Nino pointed out, but he did it quietly because he was diverted by the expression on Jun's face. Jun was staring at Ohno, looking rather flushed, like he hadn't been expecting praise and even less expecting such a cute expression from Ohno while he gave it.

"You two," he said abruptly. "I'm pairing you up so Ohno-san can learn the ropes around here. Nino, I expect your mentorship to yield quick results, got it?"

"But J--Matsumoto-san, wouldn't it be better if--" Nino started, but he cut himself off when Jun met his eyes with a forbidding expression.

"I meant what I said. If I have to repeat myself, it'll give me time to remember that there is someone among us here right now who was a full seven minutes late to this meeting, which would mean--"

"Understood!" Nino said cheerily and grabbed Ohno's wrist to tow him briskly from the room.

*


	2. Chapter 2

*

Nino didn't spend very much time in his cubicle, because for actual work he preferred to steal Aiba's desk and Jun had an uncanny sense of when Nino was trying to game during agency hours.

He sat in his chair and, after an uncomfortable minute during which Ohno looked at his stony face and visibly tried not to laugh, Ohno sat in a chair stolen from the unoccupied cubicle next door.

The only change for the next solid minute was that their awkward staring was now at the same eye-level.

Finally Ohno picked up an unsharpened pencil and fiddled with it. Nino saw him think of something a good ten seconds before he actually said anything--saw those artistic hands still their fidgeting, saw his mouth soften, saw his eyes focus on something unseen.

At length, the thought developed to the point that Ohno gave it words and asked, "Do we have a cop car?"

Nino tilted his head patiently. "We're not cops."

Ohno tilted his head the same direction so he could meet Nino's expression properly. His hands started fiddling with the pencil again.

At last he said, "I guess I don't have a license anyway."

Nino drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Plus there's all the bombs."

Ohno nodded solemnly. Nino regretted making light of the bombing for a moment, but if there was anyone who understood his experience six months ago, it was Ohno.

It seemed like the preliminary awkwardness should be clearing up, or that he should be clearing it up soon so that he could get on with his mentoring, but it was so hard to focus on anything work-related when he was still lingering over the taste of Sho's kisses while, simultaneously, wondering what Ohno would do if Nino scooted his rolling chair across the scant space between them and dragged Ohno into his lap.

"Too bad about the siren, though."

Nino pulled his gaze up from Ohno's well-muscled thighs. "The what?"

"The siren," Ohno said, eyes unfocused like he was imagining something. "On the cop car."

Nino stared at him. After a beat, Ohno met his eyes, face blank. Despite their strange connection, Nino genuinely couldn't tell if Ohno was fucking with him.

Ohno shrugged. "Seems fun, the siren part. Like, 'get out of my way, everybody!' sort of thing."

"Let's take a tour," Nino said abruptly, but as he stood his phone chimed. Ohno didn't bother getting up yet, just waited patiently as Nino checked his new message.

It was from Sho. It said only, _I can share._

Nino squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could, trying to breathe. Then Ohno was in his space, even though Nino hadn't heard him move, and there was a warm touch on Nino's arm.

Nino jerked away. "I said let's take a tour, not that it's all right to… to…" He still had his eyes closed because he wasn't sure he should see Ohno's face from that close.

"What's there to see, if there aren't any cop cars?" Ohno asked a moment later, audibly a safe distance away.

"We have other cars," Nino said in as steady a voice as he could manage. He opened his eyes and succeeded in not immediately leaping on Ohno like a hungry animal. "Some of them I haven't even wrecked yet."

Ohno, whispering despite the current absence of people in their vicinity, said, "Do you think Machimoto-san knows I don't have a driving license?"

Nino said with emphasis, " _Matsumoto_ -san? Our boss? It's always safest to assume he knows everything, Ohno-san."

Ohno nodded slowly like this was the wisest advice he'd ever heard in his life. Looking at that easygoing face, Nino remembered suddenly that Ohno was only there right now because he'd survived the agency's basic training, which was not so much basic as it was basically six months of hell. He was almost definitely in this best shape of his life, and he should've been changed by the experience--should've been sharper, or harsher, or slower to trust.

Even while Nino had this thought, Ohno stared at him with the placid expression of a person who was willing to stand there zoning out for the rest of the day, if Nino wanted.

"Let's go," Nino said curtly. "We've got a lot of ground to cover. I assume today is your first time in this building?"

Ohno nodded, eyes widening a bit like he was realizing he was going to be there every work-day for the foreseeable future, at least when he wasn't on a mission.

"Then pay attention. I'm not saying you should take notes, Ohno-san, but when I'm talking it's always a good idea, I've found. With me as your mentor, you might even want to invest in a tape-recorder so you can listen to my voice again when you get home at night--"

Nino cut off as his bluster started to veer into dangerous territory.

"Let's go," he said again, and they started off.

*

They made it through two floors before Ohno's intermittent attention changed to overt boredom. Nino continued his droning, glad of the respite from Ohno's eyes on him, but then they got to the gym and the look in those doe eyes changed from glazed torpor to something keen and thoughtful.

When Ohno turned those sharp eyes on Nino, it was all Nino could do not to shiver.

Ohno gestured to the gym--not to the weights or the ellipticals or the sauna, but to the wrestling mats spread in the middle of the wide room where there were agents practicing even now.

"Wanna spar?" When he didn't immediately receive a response, Ohno took a step closer. "Since you're my mentor. I could take notes on your technique."

For the second time that day, Nino grasped Ohno by the wrist and pulled him along after him with purpose. Ohno didn't seem to mind that he wasn't gentle about it, if the little chuffs of laughter he heard behind him were any indication.

Nino opened a door to an empty conference room and shoved Ohno inside, making the motion sensor turn on about half the room's lights. When he not only shut the door behind them but locked it, Ohno's eyes snapped to his and darkened perceptibly. He seemed closer suddenly even though he hadn't moved an inch.

Nino didn't bother to turn on the rest of the lights, just stepped back to lean against the door--as far away as he could get without leaving the room--and said, "We're not soulmates."

Instead of looking surprised, Ohno just shrugged. His eyes didn't shift from Nino's. "I know."

"Don't you believe? Doesn't everyone believe these days, if they've paid any attention to the last hundred years?" Nino asked, exasperated.

Ohno shrugged again. His demeanor softened suddenly, like his switch had been turned off, and Nino was afraid he knew just what Ohno had looked so damned _present_ for--he'd thought that there was about to be some kissing.

Nino could remember what it felt like to be kissed by an entirely present Ohno.

Ohno mumbled, "Yeah, I've been waiting… waiting a long time. Ever since my mama told me what my mark meant, as a kid."

"Hasn't everyone? Isn't everyone with a mark just waiting--" Nino said, then remembered he himself had a mark and was not about to give Sho up and wait around for someone who would supposedly be better for him.

Ohno scratched his nose in something perilously close to picking it. "What color's yours, Nino?"

Nino considered that lazy stance, those sleepy features. "Piss yellow."

Ohno laughed like his amusement was something unfiltered from deep inside. He laughed for a second longer than was quite normal, and he was still smiling with what seemed like his whole body when he opened his eyes again and locked his gaze on Nino.

"I'm not going to wait anymore."

And then Ohno was there, so close Nino couldn't focus, couldn't breathe, could only heat up from the inside out. Ohno's hands pressed against the door on either side of Nino's head as he moved his body close and leaned in. He'd been impossibly quick in his movements up to that second, so it was almost torturous the slowness with which he tilted his head, and licked his lips, and took one more breath of Nino's air before he moved that last inch closer and--

"I'm with someone," Nino said. He sounded like he was being strangled, but he managed to turn his face away.

"I know," Ohno said, his voice low. "I'm so glad that you found him again."

He didn't move from their shared space. Nino could feel the warmth of his body, and trapped between Ohno's arms, his line of sight included one of those graceful, flexible wrists, the jacket and shirt sleeves rucked up with Ohno's sudden motion. Nino didn't know where Ohno's soulmate tattoo was, but there was a chance it was right there, on that smooth skin, if only they'd sparked so he could see it. It took every ounce of control he possessed to keep his face turned away.

After a charged moment, Ohno said in a different tone, "Oh, you mean…"

"Exclusively."

A beat, and then Ohno asked, "Just the two of you?"

Nino wanted to be able to say something devastating about Ohno not even knowing what exclusive meant, but he was too busy remembering the tone of Sho's voice as he'd said, _I can share._

What came out of his mouth was, "I … think so."

But it was enough that Ohno backed off. He was a little less effortless than he had been in coming close, and Nino waited until he couldn't hear Ohno moving anymore before he turned his head to look at him.

Ohno was staring at him, his face hard to read in the dim light. "Then… I guess I'll keep waiting."

Something about the inflection on the last word had the gears turning in Nino's head. Suddenly he thought that when they used the word _waiting_ , they were talking about entirely different things.

The words, "Oh-chan, have you ever…" slipped out, but then he shut his mouth and shook his head as if to take back the half-spoken question. Instead he said, "Don't wait for me."

"I won't come between you," Ohno said, heartfelt. "You know I wouldn't do that."

It was not exactly what Nino asked, but it was enough. He turned and left the room without waiting for Ohno to follow.

*

Sho didn't seem surprised when Nino barged into his office, but then, he'd been the one to send that text in the first place.

"No, you can't share," Nino said angrily. "Don't share me, and I'm not sharing you!" It was possible his emotional turmoil was keeping him from his true eloquence, but he trusted Sho to understand what he meant regardless.

"Not even with Ohno-kun?" Sho said mildly. He was still sitting at his desk like Ohno's reappearance didn't threaten everything he and Nino had been building together.

Nino paused, imagining it despite himself, then stalked around the desk to stick his finger in Sho's face. "Don't try to distract me, Sho-kun. I'm telling you, you can't just--"

"I'm not trying to distract you." Sho batted Nino's hand away with an irritated huff. "I'm trying to have a serious discussion with you. Do you think you can breathe for a second and work through this with me?"

"There's nothing we need to work through," Nino said, more to be stubborn than anything else. Despite that, he did try his best to breathe and think, though it was hard to think calmly when Sho was so visibly holding tight to his patience. "No, there's nothing to work through. You don't want it to be just you and me, because you think when you spark it'll be easier--easier if I have someone else, and you can leave me and have your happily-ever-after, but I'm not going to make it easy for you, Sho-chan, I'm just not."

Sho closed his eyes for a moment. Then he said, expression pained, "Nino, what if you spark first? You're so worried I'll leave you behind. If I'm the one left behind--"

"I would _never._ "

"I just think you'll regret it," Sho said softly. "The same way I'd have regretted it if I'd avoided being with you because I was scared."

Nino drew in a shaky breath and perched on the edge of Sho's desk before his legs gave out. "It's not the same thing."

"And Ohno-kun, what if he sparks tomorrow? Or what if he doesn't spark until he's eighty? He's been alone for a long time, I don't know if he's told you. We owe him so much, and--"

"Love and owing are unrelated," Nino said with finality. He covered his face with his hands, exhausted, and tried not to wonder what Sho meant about Ohno having been alone a long time. The idea of Ohno being lonely was like a physical ache.

"That's not what I meant, but--but Nino, if you say we're staying exclusive, then we are. But since we're talking about it, I'm not going to let Ohno-kun be alone anymore."

Nino dropped his hands. "What does that mean?"

"It means I'm going to be his friend, if he'll have me," Sho said simply. He reached out and took Nino's hands, then pulled him into his lap with a little sound of pleasure at the belated physical contact. "I don't need permission, but Nino, I will ask you something else."

Taking a deep breath, Nino nodded, listening carefully. Sho's eyes were warm and brown and beautiful.

"Ohno-kun's not your soulmate, or your boyfriend, but he saved your life. He brought you back to me, and he's… Can't you see he's someone important? He knew it as soon as he heard your voice, that you were important. He wouldn't leave you."

Nino leaned in and rested his forehead against Sho's, closing his eyes.

Sho said softly, "Can't you put your fear aside and be his friend as well? He's worth the effort, don't you think?"

Nino nodded wordlessly, and Sho's hands came up to frame his face. He didn't say thank you, because he shouldn't have had to ask. Nino knew he was right.

Still, he wasn't above saying petulantly, "Why did you recruit him, anyway?"

"Ah, that's a different question," Sho said jovially, and he lifted Nino up to sit on his desk in a display of upper body strength that made Nino feel a little faint. Nino put his shoes on Sho's shiny pants just to be contrary.

Sho wrapped his hands around Nino's ankles without missing a beat. "It built up over time, but first off, I noticed one day that Ohno-kun has a nearly supernatural ability to fade into the background when he wants to. This group of totally scary high-school boys came in--"

"You were scared by a bunch of high-school boys?" Nino interrupted. He was ignored.

"--and I swear, one second Ohno-kun was there, talking to me, and the next he'd disappeared! I found him by the DVDs after the kids had left, pretending to be a customer."

Nino stared at his boyfriend's enthusiastic face. "Uh-huh."

"And his reflexes!" Sho said next. "One time I knocked over a display of cup noodles, like a whole pyramid's worth! And before they even hit the ground, Ohno-kun did this ninja move, like, he was all _whoosh_ and _phwip_ and the pyramid was complete again, Nino, just like a movie, and--"

"Sho-chan," Nino said slowly. "His fear of teenagers and ability to re-stack cup noodles made you think he'd be a good secret agent?"

Sho stopped, mouth open. Then he said stubbornly, "Did he or did he not make it through training? Is he or is he not an agent right now, because of me? Did I or did I not--"

"Okay, okay, I get it," Nino laughed. "He's the next coming of James Bond and you're a genius for seeing it."

Sho nodded, grinning. "But then he moved away, so I found out where from that low-life manager of his, which cost me more than I'd like to admit in bribe money, and I went and asked him if he was interested in changing jobs."

Nino hesitated. "But how do you know about him being alone?"

"It's not like he said anything about it," Sho said, leaning forward and resting his chin on Nino's knee while he thought. "But he always got me talking somehow, about you, about my family and friends, and he never reciprocated. And it's not just that he didn't talk about them... Somehow I could tell, they just weren't there to talk about. He had this shitty job, and that was it."

Nino smiled suddenly, feeling like he could power the whole block with his feelings for Sho. "So you recruited him. Now he has a marginally less shitty job, and he has--"

He stopped, but Sho looked up at him, eyes shining. "And he has us."

Nino stressed, "As friends," but there wasn't any bitterness left in it. He and Sho looked at each other for a long moment, matched, but then Nino had to say, "And the other thing, the _sharing_ thing… I don't want to hear it again."

Sho didn't bother to look surprised. "Then I won't say it."

He stopped there, but Nino heard the implication. Sho wouldn't say it, but that wouldn't mean he wasn't thinking it, and Nino would always know.

This, too, was enough. Like Nino and Sho, like what they had without destiny, their chosen happiness… and like friendship with Ohno, it was enough.

*

Summer turned to autumn, and autumn to winter, and though Nino resisted the impulse to cover himself at all times in public so that his skin wouldn't touch anyone new, his soulmate tattoo didn't spark. Neither did Sho's, and, though it was of course irrelevant, neither did Ohno's.

Sho kept his word. Not only did he refrain from trying to push Nino into anyone else's arms, he became friends with Ohno. So did Nino.

Nino tried to keep their friendships separate, for no reason he could put into words. It felt right to be friends with Ohno, as least infinitely more right than _not_ being friends with Ohno, and Sho and Ohno were so easy and sweet together that it started to seem impossible that there'd been a time they hadn't competed weekly to find the best box lunches to share with each other, or gone out drinking and ended up passing out in a karaoke bar, or gifted each other with t-shirts from their travels that, as Nino had occasion to know, at least one of them wore to shreds as a sleeping shirt from then on.

Some evil impulse of that asshole, destiny, had Ohno assigned to the cubicle next to Nino's. Without acknowledging it to anyone, Nino started to work at his own desk instead of stealing his handler's. Aiba, not sure whether to be relieved or to protest at the abandonment, settled for coming and hanging out with them whenever his own workload permitted, which was perhaps more frequent than their boss would have wished.

After Ohno settled in, Jun sent him on a mission with Aiba as his handler and Nino as backup, and Ohno sailed through without a snag. His training-mates, Eikura and Yoshida, showed similar promise in the field, though Yoshida had a tendency to try to bulldoze through any problem. It worked for her an alarming amount of the time.

Toma got assigned as Ohno's handler after the trainees ended their probationary period, and soon Nino could tell, heartbreakingly easily, that Ohno had more friends than he'd had since he'd been young. He had Eikura and Yoshida, who teased him and trained with him and pushed him to be better, and Toma, who was the voice in his ear and had his back in every situation. He had Aiba, who had taken to Ohno from the first, and even Jun, who tried and failed not to be obvious about how much he doted on his versatile new employee.

And he had Sho, whose decision to become Ohno's friend soon seemed less a decision than completely inevitable, and, of course, he had Nino.

Nino's friendship with Ohno was a tricky thing. It was, as it had been since the first time they'd met, a relationship where it seemed at times that they could read each other's minds. At the same time, there were things under the surface that needed to stay there or their friendship would founder, if not outright explode.

Nino touched Ohno a lot, because he was a tactile person and it would've felt weirder not to, but he didn't always react well to Ohno touching him back. He avoided drinking too much when Ohno was present, and he worked hard to keep any occasions where he and Sho and Ohno were in the same room to professional ones.

Those few times he allowed himself to be around both of them at the same time off the clock were the times that most tested his resolve. There was something about the way Sho and Ohno were together that made him feel left out in a way he didn't feel when he was watching Sho interact with Aiba or Yoshida, both of whom frequently gravitated toward Sho in social situations. Worse than feeling left out were the times that Sho and Ohno would reach a pause in their conversation and look around the room until their eyes found him.

Sho never said anything about it, and Ohno learned to follow Sho's example, but Nino always felt like they were waiting for him to join them, and it was embarrassing to think that he didn't have the self-control to do so, even if he wanted to.

And he wasn't sure he wanted to. He got drunk more than once in those months, which was rare for him--a few times with Sho and once with Aiba. He never talked about his feelings for Ohno, even then, but he let out things at those times that couldn't be considered unrelated if one knew the particulars as well as he and Sho did. (Aiba was more confused, but willing to lend his shoulder regardless.)

It was the same old story, always--the fact that he was with Sho and wanted to stay with Sho no matter what happened with their soulmate marks. But now when he drunkenly said things about how hard it was, he knew that Sho could hear that this wasn't just about him. It was also a reason he couldn't be with Ohno. It took all his strength to hold on to this one love, this one relationship, this one undestined person, all the while knowing that someday, perhaps soon, it would end. The idea of doing the same thing twice over was unimaginable.

Nonetheless, the tension of working closely with someone he found so attractive was something he could handle only with the constant assistance of his ever-obliging boyfriend. The surge in their already steady physical intimacy was another thing they didn't talk about, though sometimes Nino wondered if he was the only one working out Ohno-related frustration in this most satisfying way. He wondered about that, and he wondered about the way Sho looked at Ohno sometimes when Ohno wasn't looking, like he wanted to give him the world but couldn't, and he wondered, couldn't _stop_ wondering, if Ohno was feeling the same tension that he was--and if he was, if he'd found a consenting adult with whom to work it off.

It was that inflection on the word _waiting_ from back in the beginning that really sent his thoughts spinning. There were people who waited to have sex until they met their soulmate, Nino knew, but it wouldn't have occurred to him that Ohno would be one of them. But he'd said he'd been waiting, and the way that he'd said it was curious… and there were times when he looked at Nino with that blank face of his but his eyes would be so hot on Nino's skin that Nino had to leave the room or he would grab Ohno and find out just what it was Ohno was thinking of doing with him.

Nino wouldn't have bet money on it, because that would've been an unnecessary financial risk on something he wasn't sure wasn't mere speculation of his Ohno-fevered brain, but he didn't think Ohno was working off the tension with anyone. He didn't think Ohno ever _had._

He confessed this thought process to Sho one time when they'd been drinking, and Sho had been abstracted the rest of the night. Later Nino found the generosity to hope that Sho asked Ohno about it, because it was likely something Ohno kept to himself, something about which he could use a confidante, but the idea of asking Ohno himself was one he never considered seriously. Every word in that direction was dangerous.

Despite the double strain of destiny and Ohno, Nino and Sho continued to have a relationship that was both solid and frighteningly satisfying. Despite the double strain of Sho and sexual tension, Nino and Ohno settled into a friendship that was both natural to them and odd to everyone else.

It was never clear when you walked by Nino and Ohno's cubicle--two cubicles they'd rearranged to be one big space for both of them--whether you were walking by them as their normal selves, or them in some live-action play they'd concocted on the spot for their own amusement, and they concocted everything together without needing to discuss it while out of character. Adding to that strangeness, how much Nino touched his friends took on a new dimension with Ohno that some seemed to understand better than others. Aiba, for one, agreed with Nino that Ohno's butt had healing properties, but Jun, though he held off from saying anything, tended to get a look on his face like he'd bitten a lemon every time Nino cupped the seat of Ohno's pants and squeezed.

On one memorable occasion as winter edged back toward spring, Sho himself got spectacularly drunk. He drank so much that Nino, who had possibly had a few drinks himself, sneakily borrowed a shopping cart from the nearby supermarket in order to get his boyfriend home. Twisted like a pretzel in the cart in a way that would fill him with regrets the next day, Sho let loose with a constant refrain that it was torment for one person (unnamed) to grope another person (also unnamed) when the second person (Sho thought) was probably already frustrated to the point of having wet dreams every night while the first person (the groper) had someone (unnamed but vigorously gestured to) with whom to fornicate (and Sho used the word 'fornicate' more often that night that Nino had ever heard it from everyone else combined). After the third time Sho had gone through it, each time a bit louder than the last, Nino had gotten out his phone and recorded the next one. Someday, he'd thought blearily, surely someday it would be funny.

The following day Sho hadn't said anything about it other than apologizing for Nino having to take care of him, and he'd seemed lighthearted enough when he consented to pose for a picture with the purloined shopping cart before they wheeled it back to the store late the next night.

But soon after that was the incident at the club with Ohno, and Nino was never sure afterwards if the two events weren't connected in some way he couldn't work out. A whole group of them had gone out, spurred on by Aiba and Toma. Aiba had refused to take no for an answer so Nino agreed to come as long as Aiba bought his drinks.

Nino nursed his drinks for a long time, watching Ohno dance. Sho wasn't there that time, but several other of his coworkers were, and Ohno was dancing with Eikura and Toma and Aiba in the middle of the dancefloor to the pounding rhythm. Then his dance partners found their way back over to Nino, sweaty and laughing, and Ohno was left alone in the crowd, dancing by himself among strangers.

Nino wasn't much of a dancer, but he knew, watching Ohno just then, that he could have slipped through the press of bodies to his friend, wrapped his arms around Ohno's neck, and danced with him for hours. Or at least half an hour, at which point he would have collapsed with dehydration, but honestly he wasn't sure he would have made it half an hour dancing with Ohno before they would've been kissing, and it would have all gone downhill from there.

Nino was imagining this in more detail than he would have if he hadn't been drinking when he saw that Ohno, the real Ohno, had a partner. And it wasn't long after that that Ohno, the real Ohno, was making out on the dancefloor for everyone to see.

It was about that time when Nino dropped his glass on the floor and demanded to be taken home, but he got an eyeful of Ohno kissing some gorgeous stranger before he ended up in a cab bound back to Sho.

That night, Nino lay on their bed, shaking his head no when Sho reached out to touch him. He suspected from his detached observation of Sho's behavior that he eventually wormed the truth out of Aiba via texts, but Sho didn't force the issue. They lay there together, not touching, for well over an hour before either of them slept.

The following day was notable in more ways than one. First came the encounter with Ohno, which had repercussions that were felt for a long time to come.

Second, and this was true for everyone at the agency, it was the last day of the slow year they'd had before information--the _right_ information--finally came in and was passed along from their allies to them about the bombings the year before.

At the time of the debrief on Ohno's first day, Jun had said that it wouldn't be long before they were given a chance to bring the perpetrators of the attack on Japanese soil to justice. In fact, as it turned out, their fearless leader broke more than a few office items during Ohno's first year as a secret agent.

There were the countless pencils he snapped when starting a morning meeting with the reminder that they had to be ready at a moment's notice. Over time it got to be a set thing--he said the usual words and broke the pencil, and then they could get down to the actual work they had to do.

There was the time he kicked a chair as he left the room after a false alarm about the terrorists' location and the chair snapped a leg against the wall. This one, Jun claimed, was not his fault. He said to anyone who brought it up, even by an amused facial expression, that the chair must have been about to break anyway to fall apart at so little provocation.

The best, Nino thought, was when he'd thrown the stapler after the United States had run a mission without their knowledge, violating their agreement to bring Japan in at the end. It had turned out to be yet more false information, but Jun's anger in the moment had been blazingly genuine. Nino argued later, over drinks with Aiba and Yoshida, that the incident topped the chart of Jun's office supply destruction because it managed to destroy two at once--the stapler, which splintered against the wall, and the projector screen, which the stapler tore a hole through on the way to its doom.

It wasn't always funny, but they were used to finding humor where they could. Even Sho, who when it came down to it had to come up with the budget for office supplies, didn't say anything to Jun about it. To Nino privately Sho admitted that it saved them money in the end, because without the outlet for his anger Jun might quit, and without Jun he thought the agency would fall apart.

The endless delay and uncertainty did give the new agents--Ohno, Eikura, and Yoshida--a relatively peaceful first year. They had the minor missions, tedious stakeouts, and endless paperwork Nino had already come to know as making up the majority of his job, punctuated rarely by actual or closely averted catastrophe.

Of course, that was only professionally. On that last day before the work lull finally broke, the day after Nino had seen Ohno making out with a stranger, Nino confronted Ohno in a way he'd been avoiding since that time Ohno had pressed him up against that conference room door.

*

Nino was weird all morning. He couldn't help it--all he could think about was the way it had felt to watch Ohno kissing someone else. He was late to the morning meeting, failed to listen to anything if Jun wasn't addressing him directly, and took his work, for the first time in ages, down a floor to Aiba's desk instead of using his own.

Ohno found him there, in the office Aiba shared with Toma. He didn't bother to make an excuse about anything work-related, he just sat on top of Toma's desk and looked at Nino, who was hunched over a mission report next to Aiba.

Toma glanced between Ohno and Nino. Then he looked at Aiba. As one, they stood and awkwardly left in silence, leaving the office to their field agents.

"Come to help me with the paperwork?" Nino asked pleasantly. He held out half of his stack, but Ohno didn't take it. He looked tired.

Nino wanted to shake him. He wanted to go to Sho's office and lock the door and get his boyfriend so worked up that Sho fucked every thought of Ohno out of them both.

Instead he filled out paperwork. Ohno daydreamed, or maybe waited for Nino to break, or maybe slept with his eyes open like the old man he was.

It was almost lunchtime when Nino snapped. Without turning around, he asked tightly, "Does kissing count?"

No answer.

Nino repeated the question, getting angry, and waited as long as his patience could take before he turned around to wake Ohno up and ask him again.

Ohno wasn't sleeping. He was sitting in Toma's chair with typically terrible posture and a gleam in his eyes that made Nino wish he could take back his question.

He couldn't, of course. Ohno said, "Count for waiting or count for us?"

Nino caught his breath at this acknowledgement of the two biggest issues under the surface of his friendship with Ohno. He shouldn't have asked; he'd known he shouldn't ask.

"Forget it."

Ohno just smirked. "You know, I don't think I will." In that moment his physical presence was a force, all self-confidence and heavy-lidded eyes.

Rather than give in to it, to himself, Nino said, "You're crossing a line right now, you know that."

"You're the one who asked," Ohno said, holding Nino's gaze. "What kind of answer were you looking for?"

"There is no us," Nino said ruthlessly, "and you know I told you not to wait for me, so if that's what you're waiting for, don't."

Ohno's expression hardened, his eyes losing their gleam, and he looked more tired than ever. "My feelings are my own."

"But--" Nino started, but Ohno interrupted him.

"My feelings are my own, Nino, and no matter how much you act like they're the problem, you know they're not. I'm not asking you for anything, so if you… if you and Sho-kun are struggling, leave me out of it."

"We're not struggling," Nino said, surprised into simple honesty. Nino was struggling with his feelings for Ohno, and Sho probably had some feelings of his own he was putting aside to be with Nino, but Sho and Nino's relationship was as much a refuge as ever.

He meant to say something else--he didn't know if it would have been angry or not, but he was sure there was more to say--but Ohno seemed suddenly changed in a way that stopped the words on Nino's tongue.

He didn't even look all that different, really, but somehow Nino just knew Ohno was more than exhausted.

He looked like he might break.

Nino didn't know what to do. He tried to think what Sho would do, because Sho was generous in ways Nino simply wasn't, and he settled on saying tentatively, "Oh-chan, do you need me to get someone? I could get Sho-chan, if it'd help."

Ohno closed his eyes, and when he opened them again the fragile look was gone. "No, I don't need anyone. Thank you."

Rather than fuck it up further, Nino left him alone.

*

That night after they were both in bed, Nino gathered his courage and asked Sho, "Why aren't we struggling? It's been a year and a half since we got back together, almost as long as we made it the first time. Not to mention--"

Sho made a thinking noise and turned on his side to look at Nino. "Do you want to mention it? I'm up to talk about it, if you'd like."

It was a testament to Sho's patience with Nino that he used the word "it" instead of "him," or even "Ohno."

Nino hesitated. "Today he asked me… today I asked him something that crossed a line, and then--he's right, we should be struggling, but we're not."

"I am struggling with it," Sho said. He quelled Nino's panic before it even began by reaching out and brushing the backs of his fingers against Nino's cheek. "But that's on my own, and with you, I'm with you. There's nothing I would do differently if it meant I had to give you up, Nino."

"I feel the same," Nino murmured. "But then--"

Sho sighed. "So when you think about it, the person who's struggling is Satoshi-kun, all by himself. Do you think…" he started, then tried again with an only slightly more believable attempt at objectivity, "Do you think he went home with that guy last night?"

"I got mad at him about that," Nino confessed. "I know I shouldn't have. And I don't think--Sho-chan, I don't think he did go home with him. Before, I think he was waiting for his soulmate, but now--"

"Now he's just waiting for you."

Nino shook his head with certainty. "Not just me."

Sho's eyes lit up in the moment before his brain kicked in and remembered why that wasn't a good thing. "Shit, we have to let him go."

Nino laughed despite himself. "But we haven't even taken him yet!" The word _yet_ seemed to echo in his ears, but Sho ignored it, more intent on what they needed to do to help their friend.

"We've spent the last year in bed more than out of it, it feels like, and Satoshi-kun's been waiting for us? We have to let him go, Kazu, so that he can find his own happiness."

Nino said loftily, "I've been enjoying our increased activities, Sho-chan. These days I hardly ever have to go to the gym."

Distracted, Sho waved a hand dismissively at Nino and said, "Yes, let's do it after this, okay, but first I'm being serious here--"

Nino turned his head to kiss Sho's hand, which had settled back naturally onto his cheek. "It's your romantic nature that makes the sex so good," he sighed, then wriggled across the bed and into Sho's arms.

"Nino, you're avoiding the issue."

Smiling against that ragged t-shirt from Ohno's trip to Okinawa, Nino mumbled shamelessly, "I think you're going to let me."

Sho rolled on top of him, to Nino's delight, but before he moved in for the kiss he said seriously, "Bring Satoshi-kun up to my office tomorrow, when you get a minute. We have to discuss this, all three of us."

Nino bit his lip, amusement fading. "Sho-chan, I don't know if it's the right time. You didn't see the look on his face today. It was like… it was like he'd given up on something, and if we take away what little hope he has left--"

"It's never going to be the right time," Sho said sadly. "It's never going to feel right to do it, you know that."

Nino swallowed. "Tomorrow, then." The words were nearly impossible to say. "And Sho-chan? I wish that back then, when you said you could share… I wish I could've said yes."

Sho settled his body down over Nino's, his eyes dark. "I don't know, Nino. Maybe it wouldn't have worked--it might've been harder than I thought." He ran his thumb over Nino's mouth, then leaned in to kiss him deeply. After a moment he sat up to dispose of his shirt, which ended up on the floor halfway to the laundry basket, and Nino wasted no time in getting his hands on Sho's body.

"Why?" he asked, breath starting to come more quickly. No matter how many times he saw his boyfriend like this, he couldn't imagine ever not feeling overwhelmed.

Sho came back to him, kissing his neck, running his hand up Nino's side, rocking with his hips. "Because the idea of someone else having you like this is unbearable."

An echo of Sho's long ago words about sharing came back into Nino's mind. _Not even with Ohno-kun?_

Sho might've been right that it would've been hard back then, but he'd come to have a bond with Ohno, like Nino had, even if it wasn't enough to push Nino and risk their relationship. Nino had to think that if they were all three together, the emotions Sho would have when he saw Ohno with Nino like this wouldn't be the kind that wanted them to stop.

He didn't say it. He had Sho with him, and he was with Sho, and part of him still thought that this was something he didn't really deserve and needed to grip tightly without ever taking a moment to breathe.

He pushed down his worry for Ohno, for all of them, and opened his mouth for Sho's fervent kisses, his thighs for Sho's hips, and his heart for the words Sho murmured from time to time, the words that belonged to Nino alone.

*

In the morning meeting the next day, Ohno was withdrawn. It was normal for him to be quiet, though, and Nino focused on paying attention to Jun, who'd made a sharp comment the day before about Nino being late and not listening.

Afterwards, Nino waited for Ohno so they could walk to their cubicle together, but Ohno must have gone out the other door because in the milling of agents Nino never saw him. He then waited at his desk for twenty minutes without Ohno showing up.

Finally Nino went out to look for him.

He looked everywhere ordinary, from Aiba and Toma's office to the bathroom and the gym, then more unusual places, like Jun's office and the legal department and that one vending machine that had awful sandwiches.

He was about to start checking the vents when he thought of one more place he might find him.

This time, a year later, when he pushed open the door of that random conference room that was probably used for boring budget meetings or the creation of vision statements, the motion detectors didn't turn on any lights. Nino was about to back out and try somewhere else, or maybe start over at the beginning and try again at all the places he'd already tried, when he saw a small figure against the opposite wall, sitting in the dark.

"Oh-chan," he said quietly, and the figure's head lifted.

Nino came into the room, letting the door shut on its own behind him. He left the lights off--Ohno must have pushed the button to disable them--and came around the table to sit against the wall next to his silent friend.

He didn't touch Ohno, but he put his hand on the floor between them in case Ohno wanted to hold it. He asked softly, "Are you all right?"

Ohno nodded. "I'm sorry about yesterday."

Nino considered a flippant remark, but something about the quality of Ohno's stillness had him holding back. A moment after that, he realized Ohno's breathing sounded strange, like he might be on the verge of tears, and he forgot everything except the need to make whatever was wrong better if he could.

He held out his arms to Ohno, who didn't move, then gathered him up against himself as tightly as he could. Ohno was stiff for a second before he curled up against Nino's chest and let Nino hold him.

"I'm fine," he whispered. He didn't sound fine. "It's not a big deal."

With as much gentleness as he could manage, Nino said, "What isn't?"

Ohno leaned into him a little closer and rested his head on Nino's shoulder. "Last night I lost--" he started, then paused as Nino drew his breath in sharply. "--to my body."

Nino's tension broke, and he was almost chuckling when he asked, "But Oh-chan, what does that even mean?"

Ohno didn't laugh, and though his body stayed relaxed against Nino's own, it felt like his heart rate picked up a bit. "It means I called that guy from the club and went home with him."

"You… oh."

Nino swallowed hard, struggling to be his better self. He wondered if it was possible to let Ohno go emotionally like Sho said they needed to without having to let Ohno physically out of his arms. It was terrifying that it felt so right to touch Ohno without there even being anything arousing about the context.

They were a match. But Nino was with Sho, and Ohno had slept with someone else, and Sho thought they had to let Ohno go.

After a strained moment, Nino managed, "How was it?"

This time he heard a definite sniffle. "It was awful."

"What kind of awful?" Nino asked, then went very still. "Oh-chan, did he--"

"I wanted it," Ohno said dismally. "Or I thought I did. Nino, are there people who just don't like sex?"

Nino knew there were, of course, but he couldn't help remembering the possessive way Ohno had kissed him, not to mention that memorable occasion when Ohno'd pushed him up against the door in this very room and nearly seduced every stitch of clothing from his body.

Still, he wasn't about to invalidate whatever emotions Ohno was having about his sexuality, so he said calmly, "Yes, there are. Do you think that might be true of you?"

"I don't know. I definitely didn't like _that._ "

"Did he," Nino started, then stopped. "Was he…" He didn't know what to ask in order to get the knowledge he needed to help Ohno feel better.

That time Ohno almost laughed, though the tone of it only gave away how close he was to all-out tears. "He didn't realize I'd never done anything but kissing before. I don't think he knew my name, even, he just, I could've been anyone and he wouldn't've cared. He got what he wanted, then made sure I came, and then somehow I was out the door with my clothes back on like nothing'd happened."

"But you…"

Nino was having a real problem putting his tumultuous thoughts into words. But Ohno, as ever, understood him.

"I did, I wanted it. He wasn't mean, exactly…" Ohno thought for a minute, and when he came to a conclusion he actually sounded like it was one that made him feel a bit better. "He was actually just kind of … dense. I know I only ever got to a middle-school sort of kanji reading, but Nino, at least I notice things about people, right? And I try to do the right thing--"

"Of course you do," Nino soothed. He held Ohno for several minutes after that, making understanding noises as Ohno cried.

When Ohno got his breathing back under control, Nino helped him sit back on his own and turned to face him in the dark. All he could see was the shape of Ohno's face and the glint of wet eyes, but he looked directly at him anyway so that he could say what he needed to say without it coming off like a joke.

"Oh-chan, I'm sorry your first time was terrible. Nothing I'm about to say will change the fact that it was terrible, but listen anyway because I'm your senior when it comes to sex and I have to tell you something important."

He could make out that Ohno nodded.

Nino said bluntly, "Just about everyone you've ever met had a terrible first time. It doesn't mean they won't like sex, except when it does, of course, and it doesn't mean they've done anything wrong… You definitely didn't do anything wrong. It's just, most of the time, your first time having sex is shit."

"No, that's impossible," Ohno mumbled stubbornly. "I waited for so long, for my soulmate and then--and then, and if I'd only just kept waiting for the right moment, it would've been perfect."

Nino tried hard not to laugh, but a bit of it must of leaked out with his exhale, because Ohno made an irritated sort of noise that Nino considered to be emotional progress considering the weepy mess he'd been just a few minutes before.

"Maybe it would've been," he said, trying not to sound disbelieving. "But probably not? And okay, that's a bummer, but let me tell you, the first time I had sex, I had trouble getting it up because she had all these stuffed animals next to her pillow, and after we finally got it in I realized we were in her little brother's bed. She said his room was farther from their parents' so she'd made him trade for the night, Oh-chan. The first time I had my dick inside someone else I was trying not to make eye-contact with Totoro."

Ohno was either silently laughing or crying. Nino forged on.

"And then I had my first time with a guy, and it was a little better, because, you know, I'm more into guys, but neither of us knew what we were doing, and let me just tell you it hurt like a motherfucker."

"Ah," Ohno said suddenly, and Nino was relieved to hear that he sounded much more like he'd been laughing. "It hurt… for me too."

Nino pushed down all of his anger and sadness and frustration, because he didn't want Ohno to think for a second that any of it was at him. He held out his hand. Ohno took it.

"It's not supposed to hurt, I promise. And you have time to try again, and try again, and with people who are way less dense and who'll know your name, and then--and also with someone you love… that's something else, sometimes."

Ohno squeezed his hand. "But the people I love don't love me like that."

Nino jerked back like he'd been burned. "What did you just say?"

"No, I know you love me," Ohno hastened to say. "Both of you, I know you do. But it's different from how I love you, and maybe I'll never get over it. What if I don't meet my soulmate for another fifty years and I'm an old man who's only ever had sex once, and it was… yeah, it was shit."

"I mean, you could still have good sex without a soulmate or either of us, but Oh-chan, you have to know--"

Nino wasn't sure exactly what he meant to say but he was so far from the point of letting Ohno go that he was already pulling Ohno toward him by the hand when Aiba burst through the door and hit the lights.

"Oh shit, here you are," Aiba said, his voice that fast, deep way it got when he was working in a volatile situation. "We've been trying to find you for twenty minutes--Matsumoto-san's called a meeting, _right now._ "

Nino got up and pulled Ohno with him, or maybe it was the other way around. He let go of Ohno's hand and searched for his phone, but he must have left it at his desk. No wonder Aiba'd had to track them down in person. "The information?"

"He thinks it might be right this time--and he's not going to let them leave us out."

Nino turned back to Ohno, who'd wiped away any remaining tears and stood there looking quietly capable. "You good?"

Ohno nodded, all thoughts of his personal life clearly forgotten. "I'm ready."

*

Nino, however, didn't forget about Ohno's confession, or about Ohno's misunderstanding, or about how he needed to somehow make everything right, if he could only figure out how.

He did shove it down as far as he could because within 24 hours, he and his closest colleagues, including Ohno, would be putting their lives on the line in order to catch and bring to justice those responsible for the terrorist attack of nearly two years before.

The meeting only lasted about fifteen minutes after Nino arrived. In it Jun shared the information they'd received from the United States, then outlined a few different potential situations they'd be walking into when they reached their destination, which turned out to be a remote location in far northern Russia. The information seemed solid--the terrorist group was supposed to be there to buy a biological weapon, and they'd risked bringing all their multinational members because the maker of the weapon had promised them injections that would give them chemical immunity to the weapon in question.

After sketching out what they faced, Jun, as was his custom with high-risk missions, asked a couple of his most trusted, veteran agents what they would do if they had the planning of it.

For the very first time, he included Nino, who couldn't help sitting up a bit straighter, holding himself a bit more proudly. There wasn't much recognition to be had in the job he'd chosen. The one he'd just received was something he hadn't expected for years to come.

He laid out his plan for the group with coldblooded, unhesitating efficiency. When he finished, Jun nodded.

"Sakamoto-san, what about you?" he asked, turning next to one of the most seasoned agents they had.

Sakamoto, a spare, elegant-looking man whose very body was a weapon, considered for a few seconds as he looked up at the screen with the relevant logistics. He had led more missions and trained more agents than Nino could count. He was also one of the few agents who had a visible soulmate tattoo, though Nino had never met his wife.

"There isn't much I would change about Ninomiya-kun's plan," he said at last. Nino's spine reached an extra level of straightness as he tried to look worthy of this. Sakamoto went on to rearrange some agents and tweak the timing, but the praise wasn't diminished because of it, and at the end Jun simply nodded and said, "Let's do it."

Everyone in the room was going, and they were all to meet in the underground garage in five minutes. Jun didn't have to mention not to be late.

Nino threaded his way through the crowd to the door as fast as professionally possible. There was one person he had to see before he was on a plane to Russia with Ohno, and Aiba, and so many other people he cared about--and no guarantee they'd all make it back alive.

Sho was standing in the doorway to his office, waiting impatiently. As soon as he saw Nino coming he started for him.

Nino met him halfway. They held each other close for a long second, then started down the hallway together--away from Sho's office, not toward it, because five minutes wasn't enough time for any sort of conversation unless it was on the move.

"Sho-chan," Nino started, gripping Sho's hand hard as they rounded a corner. "I'm confused, about Oh-chan, I don't know if you were right--"

"We'll figure it out when you get home," Sho said. He always got really intense before Nino went on missions, and this time was no exception. He looked like he was imagining every single thing that could go wrong. He looked like he was trying, by willpower alone, to force the universe into the alignment that would keep Nino safe and bring him back to him. But this time, Sho's selfish, desperate thoughts weren't only for Nino.

His voice was gruff, but he got the words out: "Whatever you have to do, Nino. You make sure he knows he's not alone."

Nino nodded wordlessly. The best agents were the most skillful, the best prepared--and they were the ones who had people to come home to.

"He's good," he said tightly, trying to forget that this would be Ohno's first big combat mission. "Not as good as me, of course, but who is?"

They were at the last turn before Nino would join the others, right on time, and Sho grabbed Nino's wrist, spun him around, and kissed him like it could make time stop.

Then he pushed Nino around the corner and started away. He'd always hated watching Nino leave, and Nino suspected this time he couldn't face the thought of seeing Ohno disappear either.

They were both hopeless when it came to letting Ohno go.

Nino looked one more time at the empty hallway, his mouth still feeling Sho's ungentle kiss, then turned to Jun, to Aiba, to Eikura and Toma and Yoshida and Sakamoto and all the other agents who were his team in what was to come. There in the middle was Ohno.

He looked like he belonged there. Nino went and stood beside him as they waited for the cars to arrive to take them to the airstrip, to the plane that would take them to see if they could put an end to one criminal group's reign of terror.

*


	3. Chapter 3

*

Jun went over the plan in detail again while the plane sat on the runway waiting to be cleared for takeoff. He changed one or two things midway through when he received a phone call confirming what early surveillance had reported, that one of the terrorists wasn't believed to be at the weapons dealer's compound. It changed very little about the plan, and when he got to the end and they were still on the ground, he told them all to make use of the time to get some rest. Then he headed for the cockpit with a grim look on his face that boded ill for the pilot, the crew, and anyone else who might be part of the reason for the delay.

Nino sat quietly and went through his part in the plan one more time in his head. Ohno, next to him, fidgeted nervously for about two minutes and then fell promptly asleep, his head lolling onto Nino's shoulder with that easy vulnerability Nino couldn't at all fathom but helplessly adored.

He started to try and puzzle out the way to let Ohno know that he wasn't alone, as per Sho's instructions, but without confusing Ohno with words (since Nino didn't yet know the right words, let alone the right timing to say them) or romantic actions (like kissing, even though part of Nino was obstinately sure he could tell Ohno just what he needed to through one good, long kiss). Ohno needed to be be clear and focused on the mission. How exactly was Nino supposed to convey his message without disrupting that?

He was pondering the merits of a firm handshake when his phone pinged. He briefly considered ignoring it, then remembered that it was his work cell. Nearly everyone who had the number was in the plane with him right now, and those who weren't were people who knew he shouldn't be disturbed.

Curious, he checked the message. It was from Sho's assistant, an earnest young woman named Haru.

_N-san. I've been given orders not to give you this information, and I can only hope this reaches you before you leave. S-san's been taken. Our office has received demands from a person who claims to have been the orchestrator of the bombings, and he wants you, for reasons unknown to us, to come alone to speak with him, 'back where it started.' He was very explicit about the consequences for S-san should this not occur. It was decided by those in charge to let the mission go ahead as planned and deal with this when you get back, due to pressing international priorities. I hope you will understand that while I am proud to serve this agency and our country, I find it unforgivable on a human level to keep quiet._

Nino wasn't breathing. He wasn't sure his heart was beating. He got to the end of the message and read it again, then unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up. Ohno, his head dislodged from his makeshift pillow, woke up with a little grunt of surprise.

Turning in the aisle, Nino saw Jun coming back into the cabin with a satisfied look on his face that meant they would soon be airborne.

Nino was not taking off on a flight to another country while Sho was in danger. In no universe, in none of his past or future lives would he find it supportable to toe the agency line on this matter.

He walked up to Jun, who assessed his expression and immediately went tense, and said, "I deeply regret that my participation in this mission is no longer possible, sir."

"Explain yourself." Jun's voice was demanding, but not angry. He knew Nino very well, after all, and knew the severity of the crisis that must be occurring to get Nino to abandon his duty.

But the plane was already beginning to move. Nino stood as straight as he could, trying not to shake with nerves and shock, and said solidly, "I'm getting off this plane now. I apologize."

Jun came close and said softly, "I could confiscate your phone. I feel sure the explanation is there, isn't it?"

Nino kept very, very still. Only his long relationship with Jun was keeping him from shoving him out of the way so he could get off the damn plane and find Sho.

Jun sighed. "Stop the plane."

The order was quiet, but someone ran the message into the cockpit, and within seconds the plane was slowing back down.

As it stopped, Jun said, "But if you're taking a personal day, which it seems that you are, then your gear stays here."

Nino clutched involuntarily at his bag. "I need a weapon, Matsumoto-san."

"Drop your gear and leave while I'll let you, Nino," Jun said warningly. Time was more important than equipment, so Nino dropped the bag in the aisle. An identical bag hit the floor next to it, nearly landing on Jun's boots.

"Mach--Matsumoto-san," came Ohno's quiet voice from behind Nino. "I think I need a personal day as well."

Nino froze. At first he was angry--this was just another delay that kept him from reaching Sho--and then incredulous, because Ohno didn't even know what was going on, so why was he throwing his career away like this? In the next tumultuous flash of emotion, he wanted to push Ohno back down into his seat and spit something awful to keep him there, because this was Nino's fight, not his.

Then, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, Nino accepted something. He'd fought against destiny for so long in declaring Sho as _his_ , but circumstances had changed. He'd been holding onto a possessive, narrow view of Sho. In this moment, this agonizing crucible with no room for logic, he let that go and accepted that Ohno had as much right to fight for Sho as Nino did.

A hesitant voice sounded from up the aisle. "If my agent isn't coming on the mission, I--"

Without turning around, Jun snapped, "Sit your ass back down, Aiba-chan."

Aiba shrank bank into his seat, but his eyes stayed fixed on Nino until Nino made a small, calming motion with one hand. Aiba nodded and stayed put, trusting Nino, but one of his own hands made the tiniest hint of the gesture that indicated a phone, as in _call me_.

Normally Nino would've made a caustic remark about the likelihood of Aiba finding cell service on a remote mission in Russia, but right then he could only see the offer of support when his life was falling apart. He forced a tiny nod of acknowledgment.

Jun stepped up threateningly close to Nino, who clenched his fists in an attempt not to fly to pieces with impatience. Then Jun stepped around him so that Nino had an open path to the door.

Nino was about to bolt for it when Jun said, "Take this. It belongs to me personally, not the agency, and I have no need of it on this mission."

He was holding out a pistol.

Nino drew in a shuddering breath, but there was no time for gratitude. He took the pistol and made for the door, Ohno behind him.

They were running to the nearest car when the plane took off.

*

The driver didn't question Nino's requisition of the car, which was lucky for him since Nino was not in the mood for gentle persuasion.

Nino drove as quickly as he could without standing out--it was no time for him to get stopped by the police. He couldn't handle thinking about Sho in a terrorist's clutches when there was at least an hour's driving ahead of Nino and Ohno before they could rescue him. He didn't even have a way to contact the person holding Sho to tell him he was coming.

For the first ten minutes on the road, Ohno didn't say anything. A small part of Nino's mind marvelled at this superhuman patience. The rest of him was divided into two parts: utter, raging terror and a clinical professionalism that would be what counted if he was given a chance to save Sho. It was also the latter part that knew exactly where they needed to go.

Finally Nino said, "Aren't you going to ask why we're not headed to Russia right now?"

Ohno sighed and shifted, and it was only then that Nino looked over and noticed he'd had his hands gripped together so tightly in this lap that there were visible marks when he let go. Ohno's voice, too, betrayed the strain: it was hoarse when he asked, "Are you ready to say it out loud?"

Nino opened his mouth, then closed it. It was true that if he didn't say it out loud it felt like it might all be a bad dream or misunderstanding. But his feelings weren't what was important then--saving Sho was the only thing that was--so he told Ohno what Haru's message had said.

All Ohno said was, "What does it mean, where it started?"

"Same place I met you, of course." Nino's smile was humorless.

Ohno nodded slowly. "And what are we going to do?"

Nino had been working through it in his mind ever since he'd read the words that changed everything. And yet there was a part of him, the part that remembered he'd worked for Jun for years now and respected him beyond measure, that held back from simply telling Ohno how it was going to be.

Instead he said, "What do _you_ think we should do?"

Ohno thought for what felt like a long time but was probably only a matter of minutes.

"The agency must be stalling him, since they think no one's doing a rescue until the Russian mission is done. That means he doesn't know you're coming. You think he's in the bank?"

"Has to be."

"Then… give me your phone; I'll draw you the floorplan so you'll have it."

Nino handed it over, but couldn't help asking, "You have it memorized? Oh-chan, that was two years ago, and you weren't even an agent."

Ohno was silent, occupied with drawing in detail on the small screen, and when Nino was about to ask him again, genuinely curious, he forestalled him with one word. "Later."

He handed the phone back to Nino after another minute and continued, "We split up to find out where Sho-kun is, then meet back outside. I pretend to be a civilian and draw the bad guy out while you go in without being seen to save Sho-chan."

Nino said sharply, "And what if he knows who you are, like he somehow knows me?"

Ohno shrugged. "It's still Sho-kun's best chance."

It was. Even so, Nino said vehemently, "You're not expendable, Oh-chan. Your plan is good, and I agree, but only because I don't think he'll know you--you are _not_ expendable, no argument."

Again, Ohno shrugged, but when Nino turned his head to say something blisteringly angry about this nonchalance about his own life, Ohno's eyes were suspiciously damp.

There was nothing Nino could say to that right then, not with everything.

They still had at least half an hour until they reached the place where Sho was being held--where he had to be, because otherwise Nino had no idea where to begin looking. That was yet another thing he couldn't think about right then.

He was about to lose his mind, he could feel it.

"Oh-chan," he said abruptly. "Tell me about yourself. Whatever you can say that'll help me forget just enough that I can get us there."

It was a moment before Ohno spoke, and when he did his voice was steady. He spoke purposefully even though the words themselves were clearly unplanned.

"Nothing special, really. Got hurt a lot as a kid, just being stubborn about what I could or couldn't do--my mom was worried all the time, seems like. I got to like drawing, and dancing, and I did just enough in school that I could do what I wanted the rest of the time."

He paused.

Involuntarily, Nino reached over and took Ohno's hand. He felt something coalescing inside himself and tried to ward it off, but he couldn't do anything about it. The realization of feeling became one thought: _If it were Oh-chan there instead of Sho, I'd be just as fucked up over it._

For all his efforts to avoid gaining another person he loved just to lose them to a destined soulmate, he'd gone and done it--the idea of losing Ohno was the same as the idea of losing Sho: like drowning.

"If you need to stop..." he said, trying not to hyperventilate, but Ohno shook his head stubbornly.

"I can say it. I just haven't in a while." All the same, it was a minute before he spoke again. "On my third day of high school, my parents and my sister were in a car crash. They… it was quick. I dropped out, and I couldn't stay in that house. I ended up with a job at the convenience store, and eventually it was enough that I had a place to sleep."

Nino pictured Ohno as a teenager, grief-stricken and alone and homeless.

"Ah," Ohno said suddenly, and Nino came back to himself in time to swerve back into his lane.

"Go on," he said, because it was all he could manage.

"It wasn't a bad job," Ohno said. "Obviously I stayed, so it couldn't've been that bad. I couldn't handle anything more for a long time, and by the time I might've been able to, I'd changed. Before I met Sho-kun--"

"That's enough," Nino interrupted. He couldn't stand talking about Sho when Sho might be in pain right then, or even--no. He tried to pull his hand from Ohno's, but Ohno held on. "This won't help me focus so I can drive, just stop."

Ohno said quietly, "I need you to know this. Nino, please let me say it. I need to."

Nino muttered, "I'll drive us off a roof again if you keep pushing me," but he knew Ohno heard it as the capitulation it was. He couldn't recall Ohno ever asking for something real. It made him ashamed, to have been so selfish, but at least he could try to bear this for Ohno now.

"I made myself as small as possible after--after, because otherwise I couldn't go on. I don't know why I made it, but by the time I came back to myself I felt like I wasn't there anymore. No one ever seemed to see me, and it made sense--it didn't feel like there was anything there for them to see. It's not like I just cried all the time or anything, don't imagine anything weird, but--"

"You were alone."

"Not just that," Ohno said, sounding embarrassed. "I didn't have myself, either, somehow. I was nothing."

"You weren't--"

"I don't mean it in a bad way," Ohno said, and Nino let it go because he could tell Ohno needed to keep going. "But then I met Sho-kun. I swear, all I did was mark down that box lunch and he looked at me like I'd saved his life. He remembered my name the next time he came, and he told me about you--I think I'd forgotten that people loved each other just because. I had customers who were polite, and I had this soulmate tattoo that would mean something someday, but sure didn't help me then, but--and Sho-kun told me about you proudly. He couldn't stop talking about you, except I didn't know it was _you_ then, of course. Makes sense."

Nino smiled despite himself.

"Sho-kun saw me. And he had this whole life he was making for himself, and he let me in, even just as a person who gave him half-price food at a convenience store. He talked to me like I mattered. He was interested in what I had to say. Sho-kun… Sho-kun gave me something to look forward to, and he made me laugh. He made me want to have things to say, and I started to look for things I liked to do again, because I could talk about them with him, and I know that's pathetic, but to me--I started drawing again, and once I showed him one and it was like he'd never seen art before, he acted so impressed."

"I'd like to see your drawings when we all get home," Nino said. His face was dry, his voice almost calm, but on the inside he felt wrecked. If they all got through this alive… but right then all he could do was hold it together.

"Oh wait," Ohno said, remembering something. "It wasn't romantic or anything--seriously, everything he talked about came around to you, and it wasn't long before I got the promotion to manager that meant I moved away… which I wouldn't have done before Sho-kun, wouldn't have seen the point in trying. After drifting so long, I don't think I'd ever been more scared than when I moved somewhere new to start over."

Nino said with false lightness, "And then the city blew up."

"They're rebuilding it," Ohno said simply. "And we're going to save Sho-kun. I just needed you to know why I'm here."

"Just to be clear, if this car doesn't have all three us in it when we're done, we lost. Remember that during the mission--remember that your life means something to a lot of people." Nino glanced over at Ohno's pale face, then added, "Like Matsumoto-san. Remember that time you came into work late and you hadn't fixed your hair? And he took all those pictures of you with your bangs down… I wouldn't be surprised if he started a fan-blog of you, Oh-chan."

Surprised, Ohno laughed, and it was the sweetest thing Nino'd ever heard.

"We get through this together," Nino said, and he was surprised to realize he felt determined instead of reckless, like he'd found his center again. Ohno had been right after all--his story was just what Nino had needed to hear.

Ohno nodded, resolute. "For Sho-kun."

*

The bags they'd left at Jun's feet had contained their mission uniforms, and Ohno had long since stopped wearing suits to the office. In his casual trousers and button-down shirt, he looked perfect to play the part of the disoriented visitor who'd wandered from the temporary living areas and re-emerging houses in the residential areas to the downtown region that was still barely beginning to rebuild.

Nino parked the car several blocks away. The streets, at least, were largely clear--though some side streets had clearly been classified as low priorities and were, even now, littered with rubble.

He was finding it hard to breathe and the danger Sho was in was only part of it.

Bombs had broken this city, bombs it had been his job to defuse.

"Focus," Ohno said sharply. Nino elbowed him in pretense of irritation, but deep down he was grateful. Suddenly the idea of being here alone, even if that had been his plan before Ohno wedged himself in, made him want to throw up.

He wanted to say _thank you for coming_. Instead he said, "Just as we discussed. The parts you marked on the floorplan are mine; the rest are yours."

They picked their way down a side street to avoid the construction work happening elsewhere, then moved carefully onto the street the bank was on. No one was around, and both Nino and Ohno turned to set their sights on their target building.

But it wasn't a building anymore, it was a ruin. Whatever had been left of it after the bombs, that had been knocked inward to avert the danger of it collapsing onto anyone in the street. All that remained was a haphazard heap of materials that had been walls, ceilings, floor, furniture. The place where Nino and Ohno had met.

The building where Sho was supposed to be.

"How did I not see that coming," Nino said wildly, covering his face with his hands. "I was in the room with the bomb that blew it up!"

Ohno was unmoving beside him, but he was clearly thinking so hard that Nino might have been able to hear it if he hadn't been occupied muttering to himself.

_where is he where is he where is he_

Ohno said abruptly, "Think about the floorplan. Think about where we met. The vent came out on the ceiling in the room with the bomb, but near the floor in the lobby. The vault's down there, too, and a storage room."

Nino stopped muttering. "The basement," he said, catching at Ohno with his hands like he could shake Sho's location out of him. "But that's where the bomb was--"

"The small bomb, the one that was just for you. A bomb that small wouldn't have gotten through the vault walls, maybe not even brought down the ceiling of the office."

"Then the other bombs brought down the building…"

Ohno nodded. "Sho-kun might still be in there. A ruin would be a good place to hide, especially in a construction zone--the machinery would hide any suspicious noises."

Nino couldn't help it: he kissed him. He took Ohno's face in his hands and laid a smacking kiss on his shocked mouth, then turned back to the rubble of the former bank and hooked an arm over Ohno's shoulder as he thought furiously.

"Um," Ohno said.

"Focus," Nino echoed him from earlier, a hint of teasing amid the distraction. "All right, here's the plan. I'm going in, hopefully to take the asshole by surprise, but otherwise to negotiate. You wait five minutes and then come in after me."

There was an awkward silence. Ohno said, "Is that the whole plan?"

Nino shrugged, any lingering amusement dropping away. "We don't have time to waste. The agency's stalling could be hitting a wall as we speak, and if Sho-chan's not here…"

Instead of arguing, Ohno said, "Be safe. I'll see you soon."

Within a minute Nino had reached the fallen building. Seconds after that he'd found a likely-looking crevice and crawled inside.

*

It was dark and cramped in the bowels of the ruins. The surface he was walking on was treacherously inconsistent, but Nino moved quietly, carefully, and tried to keep Ohno's map in his mind.

He was somewhere in what had been the lobby. He turned, unable to stand, trying to head toward the vent that led to the lower level office, but his way was blocked by debris. He could smell dank water nearby, possibly still built up from the bathrooms before the water had been shut off. It was more likely to be collected rainwater, but either way it was another reason not to risk shifting the rubble.

He stood still, thinking about the floorplan, then headed deeper into the wreck. He tried to be soundless, not only for stealth but so he could hear any sounds there were around him--or below him.

The mangled wood of the tellers' stations let him know he was getting close to the manager's office, and thus to the inner stairs. They'd been blocked during his fight with the bombs, but the block might have been destroyed either in the explosion or subsequent collapse of the building.

It was a tight fit between some of the fallen pillars, the collapsed ceiling, the flooring jutting up from below. Nino couldn't help thinking about Sho--what if he wasn't down there at all?--and Ohno, still outside. His partner in this mission was inexperienced, with little information to go on, and he was also someone Nino loved: someone whose safety was paramount to Nino's happiness. Thinking of them made it so hard to focus that Nino's breathing started to come faster and faster. He should have stopped and tried to relax, but there just wasn't time.

He still hadn't heard anything except his own tentative exploration. Suddenly what he was walking on felt different through the soles of his shoes, and he looked down to find out why. It was too dark even with the adjustment his eyes had made, so he knelt and felt carefully with his hands instead.

It was a door. Nino tried to remember what the inside of the lobby had looked like before the attack, but all he could think of were the outlines of Ohno's map. It might be the door to the manager's office. The stairs might be close.

Nino was feeling his way between what felt like the remains of bookshelves when his foot went right through what passed as the floor and he fell through the rubble all the way up to his waist.

The shock of pain to his ribs where he caught himself made him gasp, but he smothered more sounds of pain in a desperate attempt not to give himself away. The sound of his fall could be taken as natural, if he were lucky, considering the precariousness of the fallen building.

He wasn't feeling that lucky, though, and he set himself to climbing back out of the hole.

A thought made him pause. Down was where he wanted to go. There was a chance the hole he'd fallen halfway into went all the way to the lower level. He felt around with his feet, wincing at the ache of his chest against ragged wood as his hands gripped whatever he could find to hold himself up. The hole seemed mostly closed but there was one direction where his searching feet felt only empty space.

The idea of slithering down feet first into a completely unknown situation made him hesitate. Then he put both his feet into that empty space and let go with his hands.

He slid down the painful bumps and jagged edges like it was the world's least comfortable slide, wiggling his body as best he could to keep moving. The absolute worst thing would be getting stuck. He could tell he was bleeding in a dozen places already, and the oppressive nature of his location made continuing to breathe almost impossible. He didn't think he'd be able to climb back up.

His feet hit something solid. Nino forced himself to take a deep breath, feeling the darkness close in on him even further as he lay there like a dying fly in amber.

In the limited space, with all the strength he had, he kicked out. Something cracked loudly, and he kicked again, already having given up on stealth in his struggle for survival--his and Sho's and Ohno's.

The wreckage of the building gave way beneath him and he dropped into an open space. There was light, and a face staring at him as he fell, and then Nino hit his head on something metal and knew no more.

*

Nino woke to Sho's voice. His boyfriend was pleading, cursing, threatening him, and it all seemed so unfair when Nino's head hurt so much already.

"I get it," he groaned, trying and failing to open his eyes. "I'm awake, just give me a goddamn second, Sho-chan."

It wasn't just his head that hurt, and Sho's voice sounded strange--and they weren't in bed, were they? Nino was on a cold, hard surface that felt like concrete.

Awareness came in a surge of pain and fear.

Sho.

"Sho," he said raggedly. "Sho-chan, you're here? You're okay?" He got his eyes open with a terrifying amount of effort.

There Sho was, staring back at him, alive and whole. Nino was so relieved he nearly passed out again.

Then Nino's eyes dropped from Sho's beloved face and saw what was strapped to Sho's chest.

"What is it with this guy and bombs," he complained weakly.

"He'll be back any minute," Sho said, more subdued now that Nino was conscious and aware of the situation. "There's no time. Nino, you idiot, what the hell…"

"I'm here," Nino said grandly from his bloody heap on the floor, "to rescue you."

Sho snorted. "I'll believe it when I see you can sit up."

Nino sniffed in loud offense and sat up just to prove he could. His head didn't feel right. Deep down, where he'd have to deal with it later, the sight of Sho wearing a bomb-vest while Ohno was out somewhere in the same area as a murderous kidnapper who liked to blow people up had Nino so terrified it felt like even if they made it through somehow, he might never recover.

He worked his way slowly up to his feet with the aid of the filing cabinet it felt like he'd left part of his skull on as he questioned Sho. He couldn't move any quicker, so he might as well get as much information as he could.

"How does he get in and out? Did you see him set the bomb, do you remember what he did? Have you seen him communicate with anyone?"

He swayed on his feet and focused on Sho, who was tied to a chair with a bomb strapped to his chest. The former, at least, he could do something about, and he headed over unsteadily to untie the knots. He couldn't hear anyone coming, but then everything he did hear was suspiciously echoing.

"I was drugged when he brought me in, but I believe he's dug some sort of tunnel that comes out… elsewhere. He always has dirt on his clothes when he comes back," Sho said. Nino was absently proud of his boyfriend's steady voice.

"You're so brave," he sighed, and the shock of saying something he certainly hadn't meant to say out loud actually woke him up a bit. He made it the last few steps over to Sho and went around him carefully (the urge to collapse on his boyfriend's chest was strong but he resisted it, considering the whole bomb thing) to get his hands started freeing Sho. "Excuse me, my mouth seems to be malfunctioning."

Sho chuckled, but he didn't let himself get sidetracked. His hands were so cold. "The bomb was on me and already set when I woke up. He has the detonator--he wears it around his neck. I haven't seen anyone else, and he hasn't talked to anyone, but he talks to himself a lot. Like, a lot. So much it stopped being scary and just became irritating."

"What does he say?" Nino asked curiously. He took a break from yanking at the ropes to rub some warmth into Sho's hands, wondering just how long Sho had been tied up.

"He blames you that he got kicked out of the group--says he was humiliated by you when you saved the city from his bombs."

"But I didn't," Nino said, bewildered. "The city blew up; I didn't stop it."

"Everyone in the city was supposed to die. Somehow Rambo found out you were the one who hacked his message to the rest of the group--you never told me you did that, Nino--and he's been trying to find you ever since. Last week he found you, and he saw us together. He's been planning this, says he was going to do it more slowly but he found out from an old contact about the biological weapon thing and figured out the agency might move on it. He doesn't have a good plan, Nino…"

Nino agreed with the rest of Sho's thought. "And it only makes him more dangerous, that he's unpredictable. Did you say Rambo?"

"That's what he told me to call him," Sho said tiredly. "He's Japanese, though."

They were quiet a moment. Nino's fingers weren't up to their usual dexterity, and it was so frustrating that he might've cried if it wouldn't have reduced visibility for his task.

He tried to keep his voice calm. "Are any of the other rooms down here intact? This must be the storage room, to go by all the deadly filing cabinets with sharp edges. The vault? The back office?"

"I think the vault was ransacked ages ago, or maybe the authorities got in to retrieve all the valuables, but he goes in there sometimes when he doesn't want me to see what he's doing. I haven't seen him go in the office except when he leaves and comes back. The tunnel goes through there."

In some miracle, Nino finally got the knots undone and was about to say something about exploring the room with the tunnel while Sho stayed as still as possible, considering the bomb, but just then there was a noise from the hallway. Nino turned, taking in the open door to the storage room, the vault door that he could see was standing ajar in the hall. It blocked his view of the other door he knew was there: the one to the back office with the tunnel through which, it seemed, Rambo was now coming back.

Nino turned and quickly looped the rope back around Sho's wrists. Sho hadn't moved. For all he'd said the terrorist was more irritating than scary now, he looked petrified to hear him returning.

Nino didn't blame him one bit. His only hope was that Sho stayed still and looked restrained so that the terrorist would ignore him as dealt with already. He took out his pistol and pointed it at the open door, just waiting for his angle to aim it at Rambo's head so he could force him to disable the bomb.

Despite his nerves and pressing injuries, his hands were steady. He'd been trained relentlessly and was an agent of long standing--this was his job, and he was good at it.

There was the sound of footsteps, then the vault door moved. Nino controlled his breathing and waited for his chance.

The figure that came to the door of the storage room was Ohno.

Nino blinked, pistol starting to drop automatically, but then he saw the glint of a weapon and he jerked his hands back up.

Behind Ohno, whose hands were lifting into the air, was a tall, Japanese-looking man with one hand on Ohno's shoulder and a gun to Ohno's head.

"Drop your weapon," he said, his eyes on Nino. His Japanese was unaccented, his tone ruthless.

Nino didn't hesitate. It would cost this man nothing to shoot Ohno now--he still had the detonator around his neck to ensure Nino's good behavior.

Bending slowly, Nino put Jun's pistol on the concrete and stood back up without taking his eyes from the two people framed in the open door.

"What do you want?" he asked, keeping all traces of rage from his voice. It wasn't like he didn't also have training in negotiation. This might be the negotiation where he stood to lose the most he could ever lose, but he had to believe he had the skills to find a way they could still get out of this alive.

The gun trained at the back of Ohno's head didn't move. "Kick it over."

Nino carefully kicked the pistol about halfway between his feet and Ohno's.

For a moment, no one did anything.

"See?" Ohno said at last. He met Nino's eyes with a strangely insolent expression. "And that was his only weapon."

As Nino watched, disbelieving, Ohno dropped his hands to his sides and smiled at Nino. The next moment he was shoved into the room as Rambo said, "Don't you go near that gun," but when Ohno didn't, just walked across the room, past Nino, to stand midway between Sho on his chair and Nino by the filing cabinets, the gun that had been pointed at Ohno moved to point at Nino instead.

"So it's true," the terrorist said, gloating now. "You've turned your own colleague against you, Ninomiya-san. He told me how you've kept him from the love of his life--he told me that he was willing to trade your life to save Sakurai."

Despite himself, Nino's eyes darted to Ohno, then back to the barrel of the gun. It was coming closer.

"I found him out there trying to get in. I checked him for weapons, but see, he wasn't coming to hurt me, after all--he's like me."

Nino had to look up now if he wanted to meet the terrorist's eyes. He did, because staring into the gun wasn't going to help him think, and he wanted to show he was listening. As long as they were talking, he had a chance, and from what Sho had said Rambo really liked to talk.

"He's like me," Rambo said with quiet menace. "You tried to ruin his life, just like you ruined mine. But when I kill you, they'll see. I'll be back in, Ninomiya-san, and you'll be dead."

"And Sho?" Nino asked steadily.

The terrorist shrugged. "He doesn't matter to me. Ohno-san can have him, since he made this so much easier than I even thought it'd be."

"Thank you," Ohno said, his voice going hoarse with gratitude. "If I could, Rambo-san; may I take the first shot?"

The answer was a growled, "I'll be the one to take his life. And if you think--"

Ohno interrupted him recklessly. He was dropping the humble tone and gaining in confidence, clearly trying to be a comrade instead of a supplicant. "No, I won't kill him. I want to shoot this asshole with his own gun. I want to make him hurt before you kill him."

"With his own gun?" Rambo said slowly.

"Just like he used your own bombs against you," Ohno said, his anger ramping up. "He brought that gun in here to kill you--let's kill him with it instead."

Suddenly Rambo smiled. His teeth were very white. "I like it. If you make any sudden moves, though, get any idea about betraying me…"

"I wouldn't," Ohno said. "When he's dead, I can be with Sho-kun."

Sho was suspiciously quiet, but Nino couldn't spare any attention for him right then. He was still trying to see the way for them to make it--there _had_ to be one. There was always some way to survive. Wasn't that what Ohno had taught him in this very building, two years before?

The terrorist stepped back, keeping his gun aimed at Nino's head. He moved all the way back to the door, giving Ohno space, then nodded his new partner in toward Jun's pistol.

Ohno walked over and picked it up. As Nino watched, he cocked it, then turned and pointed it at Nino's chest.

Nino couldn't breathe. He couldn't see the way, couldn't see how he'd survive, could only see pain and death.

Ohno smirked, the look not any Nino had seen on his face before. "This is how it felt," he said softly, "to watch you with him."

He dropped the pistol down to aim--and pulled the trigger.

Nino screamed and crumpled to the ground. He heard Sho make a strangled noise, then Rambo's laugh filled his ears.

"A man after my own heart, Ohno-san."

Nino looked up, his hands trying to staunch the flow of blood. The bullet had gone straight through his thigh. The pain was excruciating, but if this was the way Nino was going to die, he wasn't going to be on the floor when it happened.

With a monumental effort of will, Nino stood back up.

Ohno was still standing in front of him, his face blank. Rambo was still at the door, laughing.

Turning away from Nino, Ohno said casually, "He's ready for you. I can't wait to watch you end it, Rambo-san," and he held out Jun's pistol invitingly.

The terrorist's eyes sharpened on it as he hesitated, and then he full-on beamed at Ohno. "I like you, Ohno-san. After this is over, let's talk--I bet I can convince my group to take us both."

He took the weapon from Ohno's hand and, despite his words, motioned Ohno away from both himself and Nino before he did anything else. Ohno went willingly, ending up back between Nino and Sho, and kept his eyes trained on Nino like the rapt audience Rambo wanted.

Rambo aimed the gun from Ohno at Nino's forehead, grinning, and he tucked his own gun back into the holster at his hip.

Facing death, Nino kept his eyes open. He didn't try to shove any of his feelings down. He felt everything, heard everything, paid attention to everything--if in the last seconds of his life there was a way forward, he'd find it. He'd meant what he'd said to Ohno before, about all of them getting out of it alive. Before, when they'd made a plan together... a plan that certainly hadn't included this.

Rambo's voice, at the end, was almost pitying. "Goodbye, Ninomiya-san."

He pulled the trigger.

In the next second, it seemed everything happened at once. As the pistol clicked--empty--Nino went for the other gun, and Ohno leaped from the side to grab for the detonator around Rambo's neck. Sho flashed by in Nino's peripheral vision, but he couldn't look--he was wrestling with Rambo for possession of the last gun in the room that had any bullets.

Then Ohno had the detonator, the chain broken from around Rambo's bleeding neck, and Nino got hold of the gun at last.

But instead of looking defeated, Rambo laughed. "Then we go together. I set the bomb to go off if the detonator didn't detect my heartbeat--enjoy your last thirty seconds of life, motherfuckers."

Too late, Nino looked for Sho. Ohno spun, mouth dropping open in horror.

Sho was nowhere in sight.

Rambo started to say something else, but Nino clubbed him viciously over the head with his own gun. The terrorist dropped to the floor like a rag doll.

Nino and Ohno moved to the door as one, Nino's wound forgotten, only to collide with the person they were looking for. The sweaty, bedraggled figure of Sho shoved them back into the room and yanked the door shut behind them.

"Go, go, go," Sho rasped frantically, and his momentum carried them back, past the crumpled body, past the chair, behind the first row of filing cabinets just as the world seemed to end in a roar of noise and air and force.

The filing cabinets toppled back onto them, knocking them all to the ground. Nino couldn't hear or see, but he could feel pain--his head, his leg, the cuts and scrapes from his slide through the building, and now something had gone dreadfully wrong with his shoulder.

None of that mattered. He groped for Sho, for Ohno, the two people he loved most in the world, and held onto whichever of them was closest, the cabinets a painful but effective cover as the building seemed to collapse anew on top of them.

The blast ended; the force against the filing cabinets ceased. The ground shook, but only from rubble shifting and falling on the floor above them--something that Nino realized he was starting to be able to hear again.

For a long time, all he could do was lie there, gripping whoever's arm he was holding, and try to breathe.

Finally there was a wan, irritated voice. Sho's voice. "Are we alive?"

Nino heard a grunt that must've been Ohno. It sounded like agreement, not some sort of dying wheeze, and from the proximity Nino was pretty sure he was the one whose arm was in Nino's grasp.

It was Nino's turn, he figured, so he said, "Seventy points."

"For what," Sho said, sounding very tired.

"Oh-chan's acting," Nino said promptly. "Out of a hundred. It'd have been seventy-five if he hadn't shot me."

"Sorry about that," Ohno said, but Sho said at once, "I think that should give him extra points, for authenticity. Otherwise you're just being spiteful."

Nino said pitifully, "I think what I'm being is crushed. Do either of you feel up to pushing these elephants off of us?"

"Sho-chan, how'd you get out of the bomb?" Ohno asked, not moving. Sho didn't move either, despite Nino's words, and Nino started to worry that none of them were _able_ to move.

"Nino'd freed my hands. While you guys play-acted like a bunch of fools, I had plenty of time to take the vest off."

"It could've exploded," Nino said, trying not to sound accusing.

"I had to risk it. It was the only way I could help. I figured the vault would contain it enough we'd survive… I thought. I admit I didn't think about how we'd get out after that--I don't think we can get to the tunnel, if it even still exists."

"And what about you, Ohno-san?" Nino said. He was starting to feel faint again, and this time he was pretty sure it was from loss of blood. "How'd you know Jun-kun's pistol only had one bullet?"

"He's been helping me with target practice," Ohno said, already regaining his equilibrium. "Yesterday we did it together, and when I was talking to that jerk outside, trying to convince him, I was counting bullets in my head. I was pretty sure Matsumoto-san only used eleven."

"Pretty sure? And if he'd reloaded at any point since then?" Nino asked sharply. "We were about to head on a mission; what if he'd loaded it for that, you idiot?"

"Nope," Ohno said. "When I went on a mission with him that one time, he said he liked to wait to check his gear on the plane, so his hands have something to do while he waits."

"That's as big a gamble as mine," Sho chuckled. He sounded a little stronger than he had before, like he was recovering.

Nino protested, "How is that funny? How are either of those things funny?"

Sho said, "It's funny because we survived."

Belatedly, Ohno laughed, too, that helpless, hiccuping laugh that Nino loved.

"Oh yes…" Nino whispered to himself. "So hilarious you shot me. So hilarious Sho-chan decided to … to fuck around with a live bomb. That a building is on top of us, that is … definitely the most …"

"Nino?" Sho said, sounding very far away.

He was fading. But he was happy, too, because they'd survived despite everything, and he was there with his two favorite people.

"Nino, listen," Ohno said urgently.

He tried to listen. He heard rumblings--not the kind that meant the building was giving it up and falling the rest of the way onto their heads, but the kind that was heavy machinery very close by, working hard on something.

"They're digging us out," Sho said. "Nino, stay with us."

"I'm … right here," Nino complained, his voice a thread. And he was. He knew later that he'd still been conscious, even if those were the last words he was able to speak for a long time, because he remembered the moment the machinery broke through the wall opposite them.

And he remembered that moment so distinctly, even after heavy blood-loss and imminent unconsciousness, because of the person who'd stepped out of the excavator and peered down in at them from ground level in the sudden shock of full daylight.

Some idiot had given Aiba the keys to heavy machinery.

The struggle to speak so he could make a joke about this was what made Nino finally give up and pass out.

*

Nino woke up in the hospital. He was very sore but surprisingly lucid despite his aching head.

Aiba was staring down at him, looking anxious.

Grateful not to have a tube down his throat, Nino croaked, "Whoever gave you keys to that machine needs to be locked up for criminal recklessness."

"Not at all," Aiba said proudly, his face easing as he sat back in his chair. "I hotwired it."

"You hotwired an excavator. Of course you did. Why weren't you in Russia?" This wasn't something Nino cared that much about right then, but he figured if either Ohno or Sho were badly hurt, Aiba wouldn't be bragging about his skill with construction equipment.

Aiba took his hand. Nino was too tired to stop him, and actually it felt really nice. "Matsumoto-san changed his mind. He sent me to the agency to figure out what was going on. Also, he says you're suspended."

"Are they back?" Nino said, surprised, and tried to sit up. "Is everyone okay? Did the mission succeed?"

Aiba put one hand on Nino's chest and pressed him back down into bed. He did it far too easily--Nino was going to have to build up strength quickly so that Aiba couldn't have his way like this.

"Everyone's fine. They captured the terrorists alive, and the US took them… Matsumoto-san's not too pleased about that, but coming home with no casualties helped keep him from throwing staplers. And Saori-chan sparked with one of the soldiers during the mission--it was epic."

Nino grinned at the mental image. "Did she throw whoever it was over her shoulder and bring them back?"

"Just about," Aiba laughed. "She and Masuda-san are probably squabbling right now over whether he's really going to pick up and move here. I think she'll win."

"Of course she'll win," Nino said, his breathing starting to slow down as tiredness overtook him again. "You said I'm suspended?"

"You and Ohno-kun both, for two weeks. Sho-kun and Matsumoto-san are in New York, testifying about the mission and the kidnapping and everything… but don't worry, I'm here for you, Nino. Just say the word and I'll be by your side night and day."

Nino kept his heavy eyes open just a moment longer to glare at his long-time friend. "Or you could call my mom, don't you think?"

"Oh right," Aiba said sheepishly, and the way he squeezed Nino's hand as he laughed at himself was the last thing Nino felt before he was asleep again.

*

Nino was in the hospital a week. He'd been meaning to visit his mom anyway, and he got Aiba to bring him his phone so he could text Ohno and Sho, so he accepted that his body needed to recuperate and tried not to be too grumpy about it.

His mom, from long experience, avoided the questions he wasn't allowed to answer. She caught him up on all the family news, got some out of him that she would be able to pass on in turn, and made sure by the strength of her stare and her sharp tongue that he stayed in bed where he belonged.

Sho didn't respond to Nino's texts, but Nino heard from Aiba that he was fine and still in New York with Jun, so he tried not to worry. Ohno responded to Nino's texts at the oddest hours, but he responded, and soon they were talking about everything and nothing--mostly nothing. Ohno frequently replied with pictures that didn't seem to have anything to do with what Nino had said. Neither of them mentioned the kiss.

Nino was antsy about it, antsy about the whole thing. But he couldn't work to move things forward from a hospital room, especially with Sho on another continent, so he didn't try.

They'd survived, all three of them. Rambo was in custody at a different hospital--probably to be shipped to the United States with the rest when he'd recovered enough from the explosion--and soon Nino would be at work together with everyone, like always.

Everything felt different. A lot of it was good, but some of it, like the nightmares he had or the way he sometimes had the thought, out of the blue, that he'd never see Sho or Ohno again, were things he would have to work through for a while.

It was good to hang out with his mom. She knew him and loved him, and he knew her and loved her, and that was all there was to it with them. Though he knew that she knew he wasn't fully honest with her about his profession, it didn't seem to matter. And this time, seeing her, he had something to anticipate for the next time they met. Though it might not be something she'd put in the family newsletter (or maybe she would, considering her), he was looking forward to updating her on his private life the next time.

Despite the nightmares and the worries, all the good stuff that had changed inside Nino made him hope that he'd have something very interesting to say.

*

For the second week of his suspension, Nino was at home. After his mom helped him settle in, Aiba took over. That lasted for about a day before Nino booted him out.

He was tired all the time but was otherwise mending nicely. The soreness from his dislocated shoulder had already faded, and there was no long-term damage foreseen from his head injury. The gunshot wound to his leg was neat and pained him very little, and he found that even though the blood loss from that was what had nearly killed him, what bothered him the most now were all the little injuries he'd gotten from that agonizing slide from one level of wreckage to the next.

His back had been torn up so badly he'd had to have several rounds of stitches. He took to sitting in one of the chairs from the kitchen, turned backwards so that he could rest his chest against it instead of his back.

Still, all of his wounded parts were healing just fine, and he had a week of free time on his hands. He decided that although he wished Sho were there, and that he could call Ohno over to be with him without it getting immediately complicated, this time apart from everyone was a rare and precious gift.

From the Tuesday when he kicked Aiba out of the apartment for his fussing to the Sunday when Sho finally, finally got home, Nino spent at least three-quarters of his time playing video games. Almost all of the rest of it was spent sleeping, and in between he ordered takeout and texted Ohno and Sho. The latter had replied once with reassurance and the message that, as expected, he was extremely busy and tired. Nino had grilled Aiba on the details of Ohno's and Sho's injuries and knew that Sho must be overextended from an overseas trip followed by long days of testifying in whatever sort of court it was he'd been summoned to, all on top of his recent kidnapping and subsequent involvement in a bombing. The ordeal had left him with dehydration, exhaustion, minor lacerations, and a piece of shrapnel that had needed to be removed from his hip, which had then taken fifteen stitches to close.

Nino also knew, however, that there was no one who could tend an injured employee like Matsumoto Jun.

Ohno, on the other hand, required more thought. Aiba had said that Ohno was largely uninjured except for a sprained wrist and a concussion, but Nino didn't like the thought of Ohno being alone. He'd sent Aiba to check on him several times during his week in the hospital, and when he got to the point that he needed a longer break from Aiba's lovable, smothering presence, he showed Aiba one of Ohno's more abstract picture texts and claimed it was deeply worrying in order to dispatch his friend over to Ohno's place to stay with him until the suspension was up. As Aiba from that point on frequently sent Nino pictures of Ohno in all sorts of cute poses, from beaming selfies with Aiba to him hunched over a sketchbook with spectacular bedhead, Nino didn't feel guilty at all.

His gift from the universe of time that was his alone was both torture and joy. He focused on the latter. Soon enough everything would be back to normal, and it was extremely unlikely he'd have so much time to himself to devote to gaming once that happened.

It was still an unmitigated relief when Sho came home at last.

*

It happened on Sunday night, the last day of Nino's suspension, and Sho hadn't called ahead. Nino was in full grunge-mode, wallowing in his last day of freedom before he went back to work and started dealing with everything again.

The remains of several days' worth of takeout littered the living room. Nino himself was in a raggedy tiger-printed t-shirt (courtesy of one of Aiba's many zoo excursions) and sweats that he'd had for verging on two decades. He had plans to bathe before bed, but it was only eight o'clock, so when Sho came in it was a bit of a shock.

Sho had left his shoes and suitcases in the entryway and was in creased pants and a slightly-crumpled polo shirt. He looked like he was about to drop.

Nino sat very still on the couch, still clutching his game controller. He badly wanted to leap up and steal a hug from his boyfriend, who'd been gone for two weeks and apparently forgotten how to communicate long-distance. On the other hand, he didn't think the fragrance he'd greet Sho with would be particularly agreeable just then.

Sho slowly closed his eyes, then opened them blearily. He focused with an effort on Nino.

"You are the most wonderful thing I've ever seen," he sighed.

Nino perked up a bit. "Of course I am," he said, trying to sound confident. He wondered if he could sneak in a shower before they kissed. It wasn't like Sho had never seen him like this before, but he'd usually been there for all the gradual stages leading up to it, never suddenly on his return from another country after they'd both nearly died.

Inspiration struck. He said kindly, "You look tired, Sho-chan. I'll run you a bath."

He got up, scattering crumbs everywhere, and made to dart around the couch toward the bathroom. He was sure he could sneak in a little scrubbing of his own body before he let Sho know the bath was ready.

Sho, however, snagged one of Nino's wrists and pulled him in for a hug. At first Nino was still, but then, since the damage was done, relaxed and hugged Sho back. It was what he wanted, after all, and it felt so good, so safe--Sho was so tangibly _there_ \--that he practically melted into Sho's arms.

He could feel Sho's laugh more than hear it, when it came. "Nino, you smell."

Nino shifted, trying not to feel embarrassed. "I'm about to clean up."

"Let's go together," Sho said, but he didn't let go of Nino or move at all. He didn't seem to mind the state of Nino or the apartment. Nino held him a little tighter, squeezing his eyes closed and imagining that he could just keep Sho like this forever so that he'd be safe.

Nino helped Sho through his bath, since Sho was practically sleepwalking at that point. The only time Sho seemed fully present was when he saw Nino's back for the first time. The look on his face when he saw the half-healed wounds wasn't something Nino would forget easily, but then again, Nino was going to have to work through his own feelings about the jagged scar still puckered and pink on Sho's hip. Mostly, however, it was easy like it usually was with them, and soon enough they were both clean and warm and getting into bed.

In the hour or so he'd been home, Sho hadn't spoken much, and Nino didn't press him. He'd had to testify after missions before and knew how it went. Just about everything that Nino did want to talk about could wait. It was as they were settling themselves under the covers that Nino worked up the bravery to start a conversation that could affect so much of his future.

"Sho-chan," he started, eyes on Sho's exhausted face. "When we were making a plan to rescue you, I nearly gave up hope."

With effort, Sho opened his eyes. He nodded his head on his pillow.

"When I saw the bank had collapsed, I thought for sure you weren't in there after all, and I didn't think we could make it anywhere else in time… I didn't even know where else you could be."

"But I was there. You saved me." Sho's voice was husky, a sleepy rumble that made Nino want to wake him up in filthy ways, though he knew it wasn't the time. It was frustrating that Sho was finally back and it still wasn't the time for so many things Nino needed, but there was one thing that couldn't wait.

"Oh-chan was the one who kept me going. And I wasn't thinking, or maybe I was, because he gave me hope that we'd find you and I--I kissed him."

Sho, who'd let his eyes drop shut again, didn't bother opening them. "Tongue?"

Surprised, Nino huffed a little laugh. "No."

"Pity," Sho concluded, and he snuggled deeper under the covers like that was all there was to it.

Nino resolutely didn't wallow in Sho's nonchalance. He'd had a feeling Sho wouldn't be upset, but they'd never actually talked about what Sho himself felt for Ohno, or whether Nino still had permission to act on his own feelings, permission that had been given what felt like forever ago. The relief of having even just this one conversation go smoothly made Nino move forward and press his lips softly to Sho's.

It took a moment, but then Sho was responding sweetly, his full mouth familiar and warm.

A few seconds later, the lips against Nino's stilled. Nino twitched back to stare because, mid-kiss, Sho was fast asleep.

Inclined to offended amusement, Nino bit back his comment when he saw again how tired Sho looked. He reached out his hand and brushed a fingertip over one of the dark circles under Sho's eyes.

He couldn't help thinking of the last time he'd seen this beloved face: in the storage room under the ruins of the bank, facing down a terrorist. Without Sho's bravery, none of them would have made it.

But they had survived, and Sho was here in bed next to Nino where he belonged.

"Welcome home," Nino said quietly, settling down for his own rest despite the early hour, and his feeling wasn't only satisfaction but the hope that there were somehow even better things to come.

*


	4. Chapter 4

*

They overslept the next morning. Sho looked moderately more human after almost twelve hours of sleep, but although he kissed Nino more than once as if he couldn't help himself, he didn't pull it together enough to tease Nino the way he should have when Nino, for perhaps the first time in his life, just absolutely couldn't decide what to wear.

If Sho had asked, Nino might have told him why, but Sho was still in some sort of jet-lag post-terrorism haze as Nino tried on all his clothes and spent a good twenty minutes futzing with his hair. Periodically, Sho mentioned that they were going to be late.

They weren't late, but it was a close call. Nino slid into the morning meeting just as Jun was opening his mouth to start it.

And there Ohno was, across the room, all spiky hair and sleepy eyes and cozy sweater with the neck charmingly askew. He didn't meet Nino's eyes, but Nino could practically feel Ohno's awareness of him.

The spell broke rudely as Jun snapped his fingers in front of Nino's face, and thus the work-day began.

It turned out to be busy but strangely uneventful. It seemed most of the agency had worked through the events of the unexpected dual missions while Nino and Ohno were suspended, and Jun had come back from New York with a will for work.

Jun always had a will for work, of course, but he seemed to be sick of the Russia mission after having had to testify about it exhaustively to allies in the US. He was ready to move on to twelve different things, all of which seemed to involve a lot of work for Nino.

Though Nino wanted to loiter around in his shared cubicle with Ohno and see what Ohno's state of mind was, and wanted even more to drag Ohno up to Sho's office so they could finally have it out with all three of them present, he diligently took his work down to Aiba's office and they got started with their initial planning. Nino only hoped the next few missions didn't involve any bombs.

Ohno, the few times Nino did see him, had a kind of furtive look about his expressions that didn't match with the easy way he acted otherwise, making Nino think he was feeling guilty about the kiss. Nino didn't see Sho at all, though he did receive a strange text halfway through the afternoon with an apology for Sho's long silence during the New York trip. Nino didn't quite get the timing, but he easily came up with several different suggestions of ways that Sho could make it up to him. He hoped against hope that Sho would send some sort of dirty picture in response but got the much more likely one of silence.

At last the day ended and it was time for what Aiba had warned Nino about the day before, what Nino had dressed for that morning even if he'd ended up looking much the same as usual. The only real consideration had been that he wore a jacket over his short-sleeve shirt--today was a day when soulmate tattoos and destiny had no say in anything.

It was only as Aiba was driving the two of them to the bar for the party--in celebration of the success of the Russia mission, and the mission that had saved Sho, and also, Nino suspected, for the end of his and Ohno's suspension, since Jun was a secret softy--that he thought to worry that Sho might not even _come._

He was on the financial side of things, after all, and it was possible that he wouldn't want to be the only one to attend who wasn't an agent.

Nino had a terrible vision of showing up first to the party and spending the whole time hoping Sho and Ohno would walk in.

"Aiba-chan," he said suddenly, putting a hand on Aiba's wrist where it lay on his armrest. "Let's do something else first."

Aiba kept his eyes on the road but still managed to look both curious and willing. Nino didn't actually have any ideas, but he was used to being saved by Aiba's instinctive genius, so he just waited.

After a couple of minutes, during which time the car passed their destination and kept going without pause, Aiba said with loud inspiration, "I've got it! Leave it to me, Nino-chan."

*

The party for which Nino had spent so much time considering what to wear and how to do his hair and whether he should sit at the bar or a table or a booth got started without him. He showed up forty-five minutes late, a little sweaty, hair mussed, and with his most stylish jacket forgotten in Aiba's car.

But it didn't matter, because Aiba's instinctive genius hadn't let him down. It was just like Aiba not only to have a baseball bat in his trunk but to know exactly where the nearest batting cages were in any neighborhood.

Thirty minutes of physical exertion, reminiscing, and laughter with Aiba later, Nino was ready for anything.

He and Aiba entered the bar together, still giggling over Aiba's story about his father's mishap with a parrot. Everyone else, it seemed like, had already arrived some time ago, and Nino recognized Sho's laugh from across the room before he even saw him.

Aiba paused as Nino did. "Coming?"

"You go ahead," Nino said, giving him a grateful smile. He'd sweated out a lot of his anxiety in the batting cages. His body felt tired and capable; his mind felt clear. It was so good to know that his healing body could handle itself again.

Still, the first sight of Sho and Ohno sitting at a small round table together, just the two of them, did funny things to his stomach. A lot of it was deja vu--he'd watched them so many times before, just like this, without ever joining them.

He'd had solid reasons for not doing so, even if he couldn't always put them into words. And now, what had changed?

Nino was still scared. He was still uncertain. He still had a soulmate mark twining around his left wrist, a mark he believed, despite himself, would spark someday with some stranger's and make it very difficult or even impossible for him to be with anyone else.

But somehow it was different, because this time, out of all the times when it had happened, this time when Sho and Ohno hit a lull in their conversation and looked up to search the room for him, Nino didn't hesitate.

This time Nino was already walking toward them when their eyes found him. He didn't falter, and though he was nervous beyond belief, he was smiling.

Then he was at their table--there was a third chair, like they'd meant it for him--and he said, "Sorry I made you wait."

He sat down with an effort at grace, and while he did so he noticed that Sho and Ohno were holding hands. It wasn't that unusual for them, but Nino had never gotten to see it from so close before, and his heart gave a little skip at seeing their fingers intertwined.

What wasn't usual was the awkward expression that crossed Ohno's face. Nino thought he knew what it meant, figured that he was remembering the kiss and feeling like he needed to back out and give Nino and Sho their space. Before Ohno could tug his hand from Sho's, Nino acted on the feelings he'd been suppressing for so long.

Without speaking, he reached out and laid his hand on top of their comfortably tangled fingers.

The furtive look on Ohno's face was replaced with quiet disbelief, and Nino had never seen Sho's eyes so round before. He was about to laugh, or say something, or maybe just hold on until they understood exactly what he was trying to communicate, but then his eyes went wrong somehow.

The bar disappeared, Ohno and Sho were gone, and there was a glitter of rainbow-colored confetti across his sight instead, like he was about to get one hell of a migraine. The sounds of the room started to dim as well, as if he were moving quickly away from everyone else, except the one sense that wasn't deserting him was touch.

He was still holding tight to Sho and Ohno, their hands linked in the middle of the table, even if Nino couldn't see any of it.

The rainbows seemed to _pop_ in his vision, and like that his hearing returned to normal. It took a little longer for his vision to clear, but when it did, everything and everyone in the bar looked ludicrously the same.

Except for the expressions on Sho's and Ohno's faces. Ohno was staring at Sho, his eyes caught on something around Sho's collar, and Sho was gaping at Nino's arm. Nino looked down, trying to figure out if he'd gotten some sort of awful rash from Aiba's batting cages, but before his eyes made it to his own arm they were caught by Ohno's.

The supple, tanned wrist he'd admired so many times had a winding pattern coiled around it from his palm to the strong muscle of his forearm, all in shimmering ocean blue.

It was beautiful. And incredibly confusing, because Nino could _see_ it.

"Sho-chan," Ohno mumbled, sounding like his heart was in his throat. "Your neck..."

Nino tore his eyes from Ohno's soulmate tattoo-- _why could he see it?_ \--to try to figure out what Ohno was talking about. He followed Ohno's line of sight and lost his breath all over again.

Sho had undone a few of the buttons of his shirt after work, and his pretty neck was showing all the way down to a glimpse of his collarbones. Around one side, up under his collar, there was something barely visible, something that definitely hadn't been there when Nino had helped Sho wash the night before.

It was a lick of color distinct against Sho's pale skin--dark red like a shining jewel melted coiling down toward Sho's shoulder. Though Sho's mark hadn't held the same fascination for Nino as Nino's had for Sho, Nino had traced those glossy coils with his fingers more than once with Sho's hand to show the way.

Now he'd be able to do it unguided, because Nino knew without a doubt that if Sho removed his shirt right then, his mark would be displayed from the part Nino could see now all the way to its curling ends somewhere around Sho's right bicep.

"You said it was yellow," Sho choked out. "Nino, it's _gold_."

And finally Nino looked down at his own arm, his own soulmate tattoo, and saw that it had changed as well. The dull yellow from before, the yellow he'd had all his life, had become brightly golden. Where the light caught it his skin looked gilded.

The sight of it, and the sight of his hand still holding on to Ohno's and Sho's together, made him finally understand.

But it was impossible, so his voice went high and panicked as he said, "But I've touched you both tons of times before!"

Ohno, his wide eyes shifting from the peek of Sho's mark down to the full length of Nino's, said softly, "But we never did, all three of us…"

A new look came over Sho's face. He pulled his hand out from the pile as Aiba came tripping happily up to the table with two beers, and just as Aiba held one of the beers out to Nino, Sho made his freed hand into a fist and slammed it down hard on the table.

"You are fucking kidding me!" he yelled, making everyone nearby jump.

Aiba jumped highest of all and slopped beer all over himself. Then, as if drawn by magnets, his eyes found Nino's soulmate tattoo, then Ohno's. His mouth dropped open. Nino, faintly amused, pointed out Sho's as well, and Aiba looked as if something in his brain snapped from the strain.

He put the now half-empty pints down on the table, effectively abandoning them since Sho chose that moment to pound his fist down again, and turned to shout, "They sparked! You guys, all three of them sparked, Nino and Sho-kun and Oh-chan together!"

Nino's eyes shot to Ohno's face, because he could feel from the surprised twitch under his hand that Ohno hadn't understood up until that moment what was happening. Sho slammed both his hands on the table at Aiba's words, but Nino could only stare at Ohno, whose face went from shock to confusion to dawning hope, then…

"Oh-chan," Nino said, holding in a giddy laugh. "Oh-chan, don't do it--"

But it was too late. As if in slow motion, Ohno's face crumpled. There was cheering all around them, and Nino heard the crash of Sho shoving one of the glasses to the floor, but for that moment, as Ohno irrevocably realized he wasn't alone, Nino just watched him and tried to keep from crying himself.

"Sho-chan," he whispered, and fumbled to the side for his boyfriend. He could hear Sho muttering wildly to himself, and he sympathized utterly, but the sweet, overwhelmed expressions of Ohno right then were something Sho shouldn't miss. He lifted his voice about the hubbub to shout, "Sho-chan, sit your ass down!"

There was an audible thump as Sho sat down, but only so he could hiss at Nino, "I have loved you for years while knowing I'd have to give you up someday, and then I tried to share you and you wouldn't let me, would you, and then I had to go and fall in love with someone else I didn't spark with on top of all our futile struggling, except it wasn't futile, was it, and all of this was for _nothing._ I was just about to have a meltdown because I wasn't sure I could leave Satoshi alone anymore, and if we had only touched--"

Nino looked away from the masterpiece that was Ohno's happily crying face just long enough to take Sho's jaw in his free hand and push it around so that his bulging eyes were aimed at Ohno.

" _Oh_ ," Sho breathed at once, and he reached out unconsciously to add his hand back into the warm tangle in the middle of the table.

There were streaked tears down Ohno's bewildered, overjoyed face. His eyes were full again already, and more tears threatened to spill over with every little sniff he gave like he couldn't believe what was happening.

"Satoshi-kun," Sho said, and Nino could tell he was in the same state of fondness, amusement, and unbearable tenderness Nino was in himself. "Satoshi-kun, I've been meaning to tell you that I love you."

Ohno sobbed adorably, and Nino had to cover his face as he laughed. It felt so right-- _was_ so right--to be touching both Sho and Ohno at once, even just one of each of their hands.

"Come live with us, Oh-chan," Nino said after a bit, feeling enough in control that he could move his arm away and smirk at Ohno. "Did I mention I love you as well?"

Ohno's damp face, which had just barely schooled itself back from open weeping, crumpled anew, and Nino had to leave his chair to come around the table and take Ohno in his arms. Ohno laid his cheek on Nino's shoulder just as Sho came around the other side and wrapped his arms around both of them.

Nino stayed there twined with Ohno and Sho far past the time when his back began protesting at the awkward positioning. The initial shock and joy started to wear off enough that he could hear their colleagues around them catcalling and congratulating them. The first person he saw when he opened his eyes again was Jun, whose face was nearly as wet from tears as Ohno's was, and next he saw Aiba hovering nearby like he wanted to hug him but wasn't sure of his welcome. After a second, Aiba reached out tentatively, and Jun pulled him into a tight hug without hesitation.

Eikura's voice behind him yelled, "Speech! Speech!" and others took up the call.

After one last squeeze of Ohno's shoulders, Nino extricated himself from Ohno and Sho and sat back down in his chair with a cool smile and one ankle resting lightly on his other knee, just for style. Sho caught sight of it and grinned suddenly, and after he kissed Ohno's forehead he did the same. Ohno looked exhausted from intense emotions but blurrily content with his hand still held by the two people he loved.

Nino cleared his throat loudly, and the yelling petered out on cue. Then he gave a jaunty little wave with one hand--making sure it was the one with his soulmate mark.

"Friends, colleagues, Aiba-san," he started suavely. "We apologize for the surprise, and we thank you for your well-wishes. I would like to take this opportunity to say: I told you so."

Sho snickered audibly, then reined it in to a completely deadpan expression.

"I told you so," Nino said again, voice throbbing with the grandeur of the moment. "When I first met Sho-chan, before we touched, I knew he was my soulmate. Two years ago when I met Oh-chan, I had the same stunning intuition--and then after that, seeing these two touch for the first time--"

Sho whispered, "Not the first time," and Nino corrected himself smoothly.

"--For what I believed was the first time and basically was, since their lives without me in them are dreary and incomplete, I knew, just as you know now, that they were soulmates as well."

He paused, trying not to grin, and he heard Ohno give that open little laugh that broke down all of Nino's defenses.

"Basically," he said, summing up sooner than he'd meant to but refusing to surrender his hard-earned glory, "I'm right, I've always been right, and the proof of my rightness is on our skin for all to see."

Silence fell as his audience digested this.

Then Toma called, "Shots for the soulmates!" and there was a cheer that shook the room.

*

Much later that night, Nino sat on the chair in his living room, staring at Sho and Ohno sitting on the couch.

It was already surreal that Ohno was in their apartment. For all his friendship with Sho, he'd never been invited into the space Sho shared with Nino, and his friendship with Nino had never been the kind that could withstand such domestic proximity.

On top of that, he was there to stay. Romantically. Forever.

Nino supposed that even forever didn't sound final enough when it wasn't just that they'd be together from then on, but also in the next life, and the next life. It gave forever a new meaning to think about that, though Nino supposed eventually the human race would go extinct.

Despite the best efforts of their colleagues, the three of them hadn't gotten very drunk at all, and a long taxi ride punctuated by a convenience store run had been more than enough time to get sober. The conversation they'd had no trouble enjoying in the taxi hadn't lasted more than a few minutes after Ohno had stepped through the apartment doorway and into this relationship for good.

Nino didn't know how long they'd been sitting there in silence, processing the turn their lives had taken. It wasn't uncomfortable, exactly. It was just a _lot._

Finally he said, "Supposing that our soulmate destiny bond lasts even if humanity dies out, what do you think we'll be after that?"

Ohno said immediately, "I want to be a shark."

"What?" Sho asked, turning to look at him with those fond eyes. "I thought you were terrified of sharks."

"Anything that can eat me," Ohno agreed, then put on a smug expression. "But if I'm the shark, no one's gonna eat me."

"I've heard some sharks eat other sharks," Nino said absently, thinking about something else. Ohno made a wounded sort of noise.

"Nino," Sho admonished, "why must you crush Satoshi-kun's dream?"

Startled out of his own thoughts, Nino said, "Sorry, I was just--I was trying to figure out what I would have said to you tonight, if we hadn't sparked."

"You mean, if we hadn't touched, or if we weren't soulmates at all?" Sho asked, curious, and added his newest favorite curse word in a growled aside. " _Destiny._ "

"Either way?" Nino said slowly. "Since I wouldn't know any different." This line of thought solidified an idea that had been forming in the back of his mind ever since they'd all sat down, looked at each other, and gone silent with the weight of their sudden destiny.

He grinned, the weight lifting. "And more interestingly, what would you two have said? Do you know, I think that maybe we would've ended up here just the same?"

Ohno looked blankly at Nino, then turned to Sho and gave him a look with a jerk of his jaw that clearly demanded action.

Sho said to Nino at once, "So what were you going to say?"

Nino felt free, and needy, and also a little like it was past his bedtime. He was thinking he could maybe hold out another few minutes before he had to touch his boyfriends--plural. It was ridiculous that he should still feel a little anxious about using his words.

He didn't let it stop him. Without bothering to try to be smooth, he took a deep breath and let it all go.

"Sho. You already know that I love you. A long time ago, you told me that you could share, and since then I've been thinking about it. I guess my answer is, 'So can I, and let's do it.' As long as we're talking about Oh-chan because otherwise you can shove it."

Sho nodded, his eyes warm as he waited for Nino's next confession.

Nino moved his eyes to Ohno's waiting face. "Satoshi… I'm sorry I made you wait so long. Pending Sho-kun's answer, I apologize for him as well, except in reality Sho-chan already confessed so just have it anyway. You've saved my life more than once already, but it's being around you every day that makes me even more grateful. Just sitting in the same cubicle as you and hearing you mutter to yourself about fish makes me happy. It's a cliche to make big life changes after nearly dying, but fuck it, life really is short, so please, um, again pending Sho-kun's approval… would you give up your waiting and come home with us?"

"Psst," Sho whispered. "You never actually said--"

Nino hastily cut in with the missing, "I love you." He meant it as a splendid conclusion, but he found that words kept coming.

"And, I wouldn't have said this earlier but now I'm several hours smarter than I was then, so here it is: I choose you. Um, you both. I think there is something worthwhile about choosing to love instead of going along with destiny, and even if I wouldn't have put it into words like that before we sparked, I had already chosen, so feel free to be touched and moved and altogether enchanted."

Cutting his eyes at Sho, Nino could tell his longtime boyfriend was about to say something lovingly glib, but Ohno hadn't been confessed to, or chosen, or loved enough that he could take Nino's words as a given yet.

Before Sho could speak, Ohno said sturdily, "I would've said yes. Pending Sho-kun's approval--"

"Dear lord, I am full of approval," Sho complained, irked by their pretense of uncertainty.

"--I would've come home with you. And chosen you. Both," Ohno concluded, looking very _sure_ in a way that made Nino's heart glow.

"And I would've said yes," Sho sighed, maybe a little embarrassed that he had to say it out loud after all. He reached out his hand to Nino, inviting him over to the couch. "To everything, okay?"

Nino hesitated, feeling a mischievous smile form on his face as he considered whether to hold out for Sho saying even mushier words.

But it seemed Sho had been keeping them back with an effort, because suddenly he came out with it. "And I choose you. Okay? God, I choose you both _now._ Fuck destiny, that fucking heartless motherfucker."

"Um," Nino said, caught off-guard, but Ohno cheered, "Yeah!" with a little fist-pump that made Sho turn to him and grin.

And Sho was still grinning when he leaned in, and Ohno met his eyes and smiled like a sunrise, and then they were kissing.

Nino nearly swallowed his tongue. His hands gripped the chair, then tucked under his legs on the seat, trying not to say anything that might distract them.

At first Sho was gentle, and Ohno was hesitant. But the instant electricity in the room wasn't anything to do with their soulmate marks this time, just the chemistry of two people who _matched._ Soon Ohno was pushing forward, demanding more, and Sho was cupping Ohno's jaw in his hands as he deepened the kiss roughly.

Jealousy… was nonexistent. Nino could've watched them kiss forever. Or, if not forever, more than long enough than it took Sho and Ohno, than it had _always_ taken Sho and Ohno to pause what they were doing and search for him.

"I'm here," Nino said helplessly. His knees almost gave out at the way they were looking at him, at the way Sho was still holding Ohno's face, and Ohno had his hand on Sho's _thigh_ , but then he was to them.

He pressed up against Sho's side and leaned across so he could see Ohno's expression from up close. Ohno took it as an invitation, but Nino didn't mind at all, and Sho wrapped an arm around Nino's shoulders and let them kiss right in front of him with a sound that was all pained approval.

Ohno didn't bother starting slow this time, just slid his hands behind Nino's neck and pulled him in to devastate him thoroughly.

It could've been minutes or an hour later when Nino broke away, panting with his mouth slick and puffy from Ohno's lips and teeth and tongue, and gasped, "Shit, Oh-chan, where did you learn to kiss like that?"

Ohno's eyes were hot on Nino's mouth, but after a second his whole face gave a little surprised twitch and he refocused upward. "Uh, Macchan and I, the summer before high school, and then after my promotion, Maru and I used to practice on each other when there weren't customers, just for fun?"

It had been rhetorical, of course, but Nino was nonetheless intrigued. "At work? Weren't there cameras?"

"Riisa-chan would watch the counter for us and--" Ohno explained, leaning to the side a little like he was going to rest his head on Sho's shoulder.

"Not now," Sho interrupted. "I would really like to hear about this later, but there are some more kisses that need to happen before I pass out, all right?"

And he gripped Nino's chin and tilted it up so he could press their lips together sweetly.

Compared to either of the kisses with Ohno, this kiss was light, but then they'd kissed so many times before that they didn't need to linger in it right then. Not that they couldn't or didn't want to--Nino could linger with Sho's mouth until the sun came up, and after--but this particular kiss was something else for them.

It was the same as before, and reassuring because of it. It was different from before, because Ohno was there, and they'd finally, finally sparked. It was like coming home and finding everything had changed, only to realize home was more _home_ because of it.

With that done, Sho pulled away to settle back against the cushions with an overly serious look. Nino met Ohno's eyes, adjusting to the new atmosphere, and after a moment they both turned to Sho with expectant expressions.

Sho laughed. "First of all, that's creepy. Second, as your … um, your plural boyfriend… can I say boyfriend, Satoshi-kun?"

Ohno said with blank-faced intensity, "You mean _soulmate._ "

Sho lifted his eyebrows at him and went with it, "As your soulmate, I request to see the kisses of yours that I missed. You've kissed, what, twice already?"

"Three times now," Nino said, working to make his eyes big and uncanny to keep up Ohno's good start at strangeness.

This didn't faze Sho either. "Right. And the ones before sound like they were pretty great, is what I'm saying, and I was busy being all patient and all…" He trailed off, looking extremely virtuous.

Nino said icily, "Though during the first one, of course, what you were busy being was broken up with me, even so--"

And Ohno picked up without a gap, "--We will gladly comply for you, Sakurai Sho-san."

"You guys are the weirdest," Sho groaned, but Nino could see that beneath those face-shielding hands there was a smile.

That was how Nino found himself at two in the morning on his back on the living room floor. He had his butt wedged almost under the couch and his feet were sticking up in the air, while Ohno's legs were up and over the end table. They'd already demonstrated their second kiss, as Nino had deemed it far less dramatic and thus good buildup to the first, and it had consisted of Ohno whisper-shouting, "No! We will save our lover, Sakurai Sho-san!" and Nino grabbing his face to plant a loud kiss on his lips. Now they were to the grand finale: the kiss in the wrecked Porsche on the first day they'd met.

Nino, tired from his recent injuries, his exertion in the batting cages, his current emotions, and way too much time since he'd last slept, was giving this moment his all in the knowledge that he would straight-up pass out on his boyfriends if they didn't go to bed soon.

"We have escaped," Nino intoned, "through my transcendent driving abilities. All that is left is a touch, for lo, you are my soulmate, Satoshi!"

Ohno said fervently, "For lo!" and they reached their hands out to touch in a dramatic clasp. Though their soulmate marks were clear to see, Nino gave a wail of disappointment as they supposedly failed to spark, and Ohno managed to hang his head even when horizontal with his ankles wrapped around a lamp.

"What a terrible turn of events," Sho said with enthusiasm. "Then what happened?"

Ohno and Nino pretended not to hear him, but it was with an extra throb in his voice that Ohno said next, "Go find him… your Sakurai Sho-san."

"But Sato-kun, how could I ever leave you," Nino said, making his expression all vulnerable and heartbroken so that Ohno's kiss, when it came, was even more delightful in its swooping command.

It was actually a pretty good kiss, too. Nino found himself forgetting he was acting, because despite the odd angle, Ohno was being extremely convincing in his portrayal of lusty desperation.

Eventually he realized Sho was clapping.

"Bravo!" Sho called magnanimously, volume low out of respect for the late hour and their neighbors.

"That's it," Nino said, flopping his limbs in all directions on the floor. "If I don't get into bed now I may never make it there again."

Ohno sat up, wiping his mouth in an unconscious gesture that made Nino's tired body wish it could perform miracles. He said hesitatingly, "I'd really like to shower…"

Sho smiled at him and held out a hand to help him up to his feet. "I'll show you where the towels are."

"But," Ohno started, and his face got a stubborn look that induced in Nino a pang of fondness. "But you guys have kissed tons, and I didn't get any demonstrations."

"You got one--" Sho pointed out, sounding concerned, but Nino interrupted, "Oh-chan, after I get some sleep, you only have to ask. Sho-chan and I will thoroughly demonstrate all sorts of things for you."

"Don't be crass," Sho said irritably, but Ohno looked genuinely reassured and asked hopefully, "Sex things?"

Nino closed his eyes and smiled in exhausted complacency. "God, so many sex things, I promise."

"The towels are this way, let's go," Sho said, all suppressed agitation. Nino could tell he was embarrassed and aroused--Sho was a curious mixture of prude and wanton that made Nino ever more smitten.

As Nino struggled up from the floor he heard Ohno ask blandly, "Don't you want to do sex things with me?" and Sho's answering groan.

The groan turned into a laugh halfway, and Nino laughed softly along to himself.

Ohno might be inexperienced in relationships, but when it came to teasing Sho he could certainly hold his own.

*

Nino didn't plan it, but he cried while Ohno was in the shower. It came on him suddenly, all the gratitude and spent anxiety and exhaustion, so Sho held him and said the soothing things he knew from infrequent experience would help.

It was necessary, intense, and brief. Afterward, they lay there, close to sleep, and pretended not to be imagining Ohno naked.

"Sorry I got mad earlier," Sho said at last. No matter how belated, it was just like Sho to apologize for his completely warranted outburst even if he'd paid for the minor damage already.

Nino said, "No, it's all right. It makes sense, since you've been the patient one for so long, and we both know you actually have an anger problem."

"You little shit," Sho snapped, and they laughed together.

"Can I come in?" Ohno said from the doorway, hesitation back in his voice after their brief separation. He was wearing a pair of Nino's sweatpants and one of Sho's shirts. Nino caught his breath, and Sho looked like he'd taken a punch to the stomach.

Nino asked casually, "What side of the bed do you sleep on, Oh-chan? Or, um, what third of the bed--do you want an edge or the middle?"

Ohno shrugged. His eyes were dark and very watchful.

Nino remembered once again that while Ohno was now inextricably a part of this relationship between the three of them, he was still a person with very little romantic and sexual experience. He'd been holding back his feelings for as long as he'd had them, with no practice in having them returned.

It was possible that in all Ohno's adult years, he'd never even slept in the same bed as someone else.

"We'll take it as slowly as you want," Nino said sincerely. "With everything--I know you haven't done this before."

Sho sat up to give Ohno one of those caring looks that made Nino melt. "I didn't think, I'm sorry, Satoshi-kun. Would you be more comfortable sleeping on the couch?"

Ohno twisted his hands together, looking uncertain. "Do you mind if I sleep in here? Um... I'm sorry if I snore."

"Sho-chan steals the covers," Nino said promptly, and Sho countered, "Nino sticks his cold feet on me in the middle of the night."

One corner of Ohno's mouth lifted up. "But aren't his feet only cold because you've stolen the covers?"

Nino hid his grin in the crook of his elbow as Sho huffed like an indignant steam engine.

Then Ohno squeezed into the middle between them, clearly trying not to tip over on the mattress and fall to either side. After a beat Sho offered, "I'll get you a pillow," and as he got up Nino took Ohno's hand.

"I don't know how to do this," Ohno whispered, and it was obvious that right then sex was the least of his worries. "I haven't even lived with anyone since my family…"

Nino squeezed his hand. "You're allowed to make mistakes," he whispered back. "And besides, we've never done this before either."

A pillow landed on Ohno's chest. "That's right," Sho said, carefully getting back under the covers without jostling Ohno. They were going to have to get a bigger bed. "You're not joining our relationship, you know. We're going to have to make a new one, all three of us together."

"You won't… be impatient?" Ohno asked, and this time Nino was pretty sure he _was_ worried about the physical side of things. The kissing before might have eased his mind some on that front, and Nino certainly hoped he wasn't still worried that he wouldn't enjoy sex with them, but Ohno had a ton of new experiences coming.

It didn't matter--the answer was as inevitable as Sho stealing the covers.

"With you?" Nino said fondly.

And Sho finished, "Never."

*

After the traditional day off for just-sparked soulmates, Nino and Sho and Ohno went back to work, and it wasn't long before their relationship was old news around the agency. Nino went on his first mission since Sho's kidnapping about two weeks later, and Ohno a few days after that. Sho had a breakdown before and after both of them, and Nino's nightmares reappeared, but the real surprise was Ohno, who was cool as a cucumber on his own missions and shut down during Nino's.

The disconcerting thing about Ohno was that he'd been alone so long he'd learned to deal with his emotional breakdowns on his own. Nino came home from his first mission back and found Ohno at the kitchen table, hunched over a paper and moving his index finger along it like he was playing a very intense game.

That was how Nino found out why Ohno had known the layout of the bombed-out bank by heart--the original map had survived, crumpled and forgotten, in Ohno's pocket, and he'd taken to tracing all the escape paths over and over whenever he felt anxious. Nino didn't really understand, especially when Ohno said, "But what if I didn't know the way out?" It was Sho who realized Ohno had nightmares, too--nightmares where Nino was stuck in a room with a bomb and no way out, and Ohno couldn't find him. Sometimes it was Nino and Sho both, and Ohno had a gun in his hand. Ohno was very still in his sleep, even when having awful dreams, but from the ones with the gun in his hand he woke up crying. It helped, of course, that Nino and Sho were always there, and breathing, and loving him.

There were small things to deal with, too, like Ohno's distaste for the admittedly rather lax apartment-cleaning regimen, or the time Ohno made fun of Sho's aroma diffusers more pointedly than he'd meant to, or how Nino and Ohno took turns cooking sometimes but Sho still tended to burn the toast.

Physical intimacy was a delightful, ongoing challenge, and other kinds of closeness both a blessing and a curse.

As a sparking gift, Jun bought them a truly enormous bed, and Ohno wanted to christen it by trying something new. He asked Sho if he could give him a blowjob, and Sho was hilariously polite in his words of acceptance, though there was nothing funny about the heat in his eyes or the way he kissed away Ohno's nerves.

Nino frequently wished for a camera to capture some of these first moments forever, like the wide-eyed wonder of Ohno watching Sho get hard from up close, or the way Sho carefully combed his fingers through Ohno's hair as he murmured heartfelt encouragement. He was far too busy for something as foolish as standing back and filming, though, because he was right there with them, giving advice on how to make Sho feel good in between kissing one or the other of them breathless.

The three of them were also literally close--they spent a large amount of their time in a one-bedroom apartment, together, then went to work together as well.

It was hardest on Ohno, of course, who was used to having his own time and his own space. After the first week or two of blissful togetherness, in which they hardly ever spent _any_ time apart, something deep inside Ohno seemed to snap. He walked out of the living room, out of the apartment, and he called them later from his own apartment only to say he needed to stay there a while.

Sho was inclined to be panicky, but Nino told Ohno to take all the time he needed, and within a day Ohno was back. Still, Ohno kept his own apartment for several months, and periodically he retreated there to recharge and have a space entirely his own. Nino, meanwhile, began plotting to get a larger apartment. Ohno needed his own room, if only to paint in, or dance in, or even read fishing magazines in. Not to mention the bed Jun had bought them pretty much took up the only bedroom they had, so it made sense. They also started spending more time out with friends, or out on their own just being themselves outside their soulmate relationship, so the tension eased some over time, though it didn't disappear.

And every day held discoveries big and small and in-between.

They went on their first real date--a trip to the ocean that revealed a lot about Sho's planning skills, Nino's distaste for sand, and Ohno's pining for his own fishing boat. Sho bought Ohno flowers on the boardwalk, and Ohno cried. Nino ate bites of their food when they stopped on the way home and pretended to be surprised that he didn't have his wallet.

About a month in, Nino brought Sho and Ohno home to meet his mom, who was predictably delighted. She'd met Sho before, of course, but it felt different to bring him home now, with Ohno, with all of their soulmate tattoos showing brilliantly in the afternoon sun. After that he got a steady stream of congratulation messages from near and far family members as his mom got started bragging about her son and his two soulmates.

Sho was obsessed with their soulmate tattoos. Nino thought they were nice enough and certainly set off his boyfriends' various attractions, and Ohno admired them aesthetically, but Sho took it to another level. Nino thought it had to do with Sho's long fight against destiny, so he didn't tease. Or at least... not much. He didn't tease at all about the way Sho and Ohno both lingered sometimes over the scars on his back and thigh, because he did the same thing with the one on Sho's hip.

Those months were filled with chaos and confusion and deep satisfaction in one another. They made it through more than a few missions, both solo and together, and when the stress of them didn't diminish back down to normal levels Nino started to consider that someday he might like to be more of a desk agent. He didn't bring it up, though, because despite the struggles he wasn't ready to give up the field quite yet. Ohno made it through a lot of his relationship claustrophobia, though that was an ongoing struggle as well. It helped that Nino and Sho both worked hard to be understanding, even if they couldn't really relate, and one night Ohno managed to stumble over not only Nino's internet searches for bigger apartments but Sho's thoroughly organized binder on the same subject. They weren't quite ready to get a new place, but for Ohno, just knowing he wasn't the only one thinking about it helped--he was so grateful he asked to sleep in the middle that night even though he'd admitted after a month or so that waking up being spooned from both sides made him feel smothered.

Despite their jokes about Sho's anger problem, Nino wasn't surprised by how patient Sho was with Ohno, with him, and with the situation. He was more surprised by the reserves of patience he found in himself, and by the times when he would've thought he'd have to be patient only to find he was enjoying himself fine as-is. It was so much easier than he'd expected to go at Ohno's pace on the physical side of things--sure, there were the moments when Nino just needed Sho to fuck him, and if Ohno didn't want to be there for it then so be it--but they were few and far between, and he resisted them. It was delightful to make out like teenagers, to blush while scrubbing each other's backs, and even to find out that Ohno's endurance was amazingly short-lived.

Nino and Sho didn't talk about it out loud, but Nino knew Sho was surprised as well--Ohno was generally so easygoing that the way he'd cried out and come down Nino's throat in about a minute and a half was unexpected, to say the least. And it turned out Ohno was like that even after the first time; he lasted a little longer under their hands, but if they put their mouths on him it was nearly over before it started.

Nino knew he was far gone because he found it _adorable._ And gratifying, and maybe a little less work than it sometimes was to get Sho to come already when Sho was feeling like putting up a challenge. No matter what, Nino enjoyed their time exploring each other, easy in the trust that all he had to do was say a word, or even just shift uncomfortably, and they'd switch directions to one he found more of a turn-on. He made sure to pay attention so that he could do the same for them, though it was a constantly renewing joy that most of the time the way they instinctively came together was good for all of them.

Nino and Sho were patient in other ways, as well, from Ohno's necessary breaks from the apartment to his rare need to sit without being spoken to at all. Ohno was patient in turn, and Nino was sure he didn't know the half of what Ohno struggled with, considering everything.

After a while, the person who was least patient with Ohno when it came to sex was Ohno himself. He started getting frustrated when they were in bed together, started moving in for areas they hadn't explored fully, things they hadn't tried, but then he'd move away to something more familiar that he already knew he loved. Nino met Sho's eyes often during those times, wondering what they should do, but Ohno was shifty whenever they tried to bring it up casually.

The day they finally talked about it was memorable in more ways than one.

That morning Nino woke up in the middle, which he always secretly found soothing, and Ohno sucked him off in the shower with such enthusiasm that Nino lasted barely longer than Ohno usually did. What was additionally wonderful was when Sho came in right after they were done and absently kissed Ohno, made an appalled face, then shrugged and went in for another. This made Nino want to pay the sexual favor forward to Sho, but Sho peeled him off with a stern look and the reminder that he was going in to work early that morning.

Nino might have noticed that Sho was up to something if Ohno hadn't started touching himself unhurriedly just then, there on the little stool under the spray like it was a part of his normal morning routine. Nino had the thought that maybe it _had_ been part of Ohno's routine back before, when he'd been waiting on his own, and maybe he'd thought about them while he did it… so he let Sho go without examining him in order to get his hands on Ohno and ask him all sorts of new questions.

Therefore Nino was unprepared when he showed up to the morning meeting that day with Ohno behind him and found a sign on the door telling them the meeting had been canceled and all personnel were to report to Room 412 instead.

*


	5. Chapter 5

*

Nino stared at the sign, which was taped to the window in the door but wasn't large enough to cover it completely, then looked past it inside.

He could clearly see people in the room. The ones visible through the slit of window were all usual people who were there for the morning meeting, and they were all very carefully looking anywhere but in his direction.

"Should we knock?" Ohno wondered.

Despite hating not knowing what was going on, Nino said airily, "Let's not give them the satisfaction." Even so he tried the handle as quietly as he could before they walked away. Given the manner of the agents inside, he was not surprised when it was locked.

Just from reading it, Room 412 wasn't one Nino recognized, but it was easy enough to find since the rooms were numbered by floor. He and Ohno walked there hand-in-hand, and it was a little thrilling to be skipping the morning meeting in favor of some mystery plan in a mystery room, all while he got to be with Ohno and get paid at the same time.

Room 412 was, perhaps inevitably, the conference room in which Ohno had nearly kissed him those years ago, the one in which Ohno had confessed about his first sexual experience and cried in Nino's arms.

This time Nino knocked, more to irritate whoever was waiting for them than because he thought he needed to. Beside him, Ohno looked bewildered but willing to go with the flow.

The door opened to reveal Aiba's smiling face.

"Come in, come in!" he said cheerfully, ushering them in when they didn't comply at once. "I'm just helping Sho-chan get set up, though I've gotta hurry or I'll be late to--um."

"The morning meeting?" Nino said dangerously, but his eyes had already gone to the front of the room to find Sho standing there next to the projector screen, looking nervous.

Nino was confused and a little irritated, but neither of those emotions were enough that he wanted to do anything to heighten Sho's anxiety. Instead of fussing, he merely shot Aiba a poisonous look before strolling to the head of the conference table, faced Sho from all the way across the room like some sort of fancy CEO, and sat down in the office chair like it was a throne.

Ohno hesitated by the door, but Aiba flickered his hands anxiously in Nino's direction before looking worriedly at the clock, and Ohno came to sit by Nino.

Aiba tossed something to Sho, who gave a jerky nod of thanks, and left the room at speed.

Sho cleared his throat. "Thank you for joining me at this--this morning meeting. Please give me your cooperation in making it a success." He bowed at the waist, and after a moment Nino dipped his head in reluctant acquiescence. He would at least try to listen without interrupting his weird and surprising boyfriend, and to help himself in this goal he took the hand of his other boyfriend beneath the table, which might sustain them both through the confusion.

Sho lifted the remote, then dropped it unused. "Uh, I don't get to do these morning meetings often," he said, acting like they had a full room of agents. "But today there is a mission the agen--that I am considering that is very close to my heart. I will now present the mission specifications in order to ascertain whether any agents in this room desire to undertake the challenge."

Nino rolled his eyes so hard it was surprising it wasn't audible. But he was smiling, too, because Sho was so _dorky_ , and Nino loved him so much. He sneaked a glance at Ohno and saw Ohno was completely enraptured by Sho's absurd fake meeting already.

When he looked back, Sho's first slide--of course he'd made a powerpoint presentation for whatever this was, _of course he had_ \--was up on the screen.

It read, _SS - OS - NK … Mission: Penetrative Sex._

Nino's mind went blank, then he registered that Ohno had gone very still. Ohno tripped over his words as he asked painfully, "Are you m-making fun of me?"

"No!" Sho said at once, dropping the remote. "Um, agents… Agent Ohno, please, let me present the mission before you decide whether you'd like to participate."

Ohno didn't say anything. After a moment, Sho retrieved the remote and clicked for the next slide.

It was blank. Sho took in their expressions, then turned to look, and when he saw there was nothing he cursed.

Nino said, "Agent Ohno, I'm not sure this guy is competent enough to lead a mission."

Sho turned on him, face upset, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He started talking again before he opened his eyes.

"Look. This is only an idea. I thought it might help us to talk about this, and I thought since you were used to discussing things this way, it'd make it easier."

Ohno pointed one finger at the projector screen. "I don't like that this exists. Why would you write that down in a building full of nosy secret agents?"

"Aiba-kun promised me he could keep it encrypted and delete it again like it'd never been here," Sho said firmly. "And there's more I want to propose than what you might be thinking."

Ohno was practically scary even to Nino as he said coolly, "I'm listening."

Sho warmed to his topic. "I think we should make a plan for our first time doing this, and I think it should be somewhere else, somewhere nice... like a hotel room."

Nino said under his breath, "I am not paying for this…"

"The mission is fully financed," Sho said, frowning at him, and it was that sentence, Nino saw, that had Sho getting entirely into his agency director character as he laid out his plan. "I propose we carry out this mission at a hotel room, a nice one, where we've never been before. Though this mission is, I believe, an easy win for agents as skilled as yourselves, I don't think there's anything wrong with a little style. And we might have allies--flowers? Champagne?"

"Sho-chan, what the hell kind of dramas have you been watching recently," Nino muttered, but Ohno's hand suddenly gripped down hard.

"A good first time," he said, and Nino remembered that Ohno had waited for such a long time and imagined his first time having sex would be perfect, only to have it be shit.

Sho nodded, eyes on Ohno's face. "A special one. Maybe we could dress up, go out to dinner? And then--I've been thinking. It must feel, Agent Ohno, like all your missions are new to you and we're veterans, and I've been thinking…"

"This 'Agent Ohno' thing really isn't sexy." But Nino was very quiet with this complaint, because part of him was starting to think that this was what Ohno needed. Not the mission stuff--that was baloney, and Sho was going to be teased about it forever--but the cliched trappings of romance.

What had Ohno imagined when he'd thought about his first time? Maybe, just maybe, Sho had figured some of it out before Nino had even known he should be thinking about it at all.

"I've been thinking," Sho said again, then coughed into one hand. "There's something… Um, well, I've been wondering lately how it would feel to be on the other … side of things. And I thought that if you are interested in this mission, and willing to go along with it, I could also use this opportunity to… to…"

Nino's eyes went wide as he understood. "You want me to fuck you? We've never…"

"Uh, no--I mean, yes, someday, if this mission, um, succeeds." Sho's face was very red now. "But for this one, I was hoping maybe--"

"Don't call him Agent Ohno," Nino warned, but it was too late.

"--Agent Ohno would accept this assignment with me?"

Nino looked at Ohno. Every feeling Ohno was having was visible on his face, and though Nino was a little reluctant about this fancy, expensive plan, he was more than willing to chuck all his regrets out a window if it meant the dawning pleasure in Ohno's face came to fruition.

"I could fuck you?" he asked softly, and it was weird but Nino never heard Ohno sound quite so romantic. "But I've never even--"

"Neither have I," Sho said, a little awkwardly. "But… I like the idea of it, with you, Satoshi-kun. And of course Agent Nino--oh, Agent Nino!" This last was as if Sho was seeing Nino was in the room for the first time, the jerk.

Nino stared him down. "Yes, Director Sakurai?"

"I was hoping to assign you to another important task in this mission," Sho said, a little more confidently now that he wasn't worried about making Ohno feel teased. "Since Agent Ohno and I will be nervous, would you mind joining me on a bit of a test run for him to observe?"

Nino went hot all over, understanding at once. Sho wanted to fuck him while Ohno watched, then have Ohno fuck _him_. All sorts of firsts, all in one night.

Suddenly Nino was feeling a little more willing to spend the money on a hotel, as long as it came from Sho's bank account.

Taking a deep breath, Nino played along for real for the first time since he'd been taken by surprise trying to go in for a normal morning meeting.

"Director Sho," he said with exaggerated respect. "You know I am always up for that task, should you choose to assign it to me."

Ohno snorted, squeezing Nino's hand again. "Director Sho," he parroted. "I accept this mission. Except only if you plan it."

Nino put in smoothly, "And plan it better than _this_."

"It was supposed to go better," Sho complained, smacking the remote against his thigh. The projector screen changed abruptly, perhaps skipping a slide one direction or another.

The one it settled on was a dictionary definition of the phrase _penetrative sex._

"And I'm going to let this nerd fuck me," Nino said to Ohno, who snickered, but Sho was already on the phone to Aiba and muttering about aborting the mission. Nino supposed he could only be glad that Sho hadn't used the word "fornicate."

"Nope," Ohno said abruptly, and Sho looked up. "Nino, lock the door."

"Aye aye, sir!" Nino said, switching the roles without a qualm, and got it done before Sho had even hung up on Aiba.

"He's going to wipe the drive remotely," Sho said, his eyes on Ohno.

"Sho-kun. Sit down."

Helpfully, Nino rolled a chair across to Sho, who sat in it without looking away from the person who'd ordered him to do so.

Ohno walked around the table and climbed right into Sho's lap. His knees bracketed Sho's hips as his hands found Sho's shoulders, and Sho's hands came up automatically to rest on Ohno's waist.

"Sho-chan," Nino said. "How long do we have before someone comes looking for us?"

"We have time," Ohno said in a calm voice, sliding his hands up to cradle Sho's jaw. "Agent Nino locked the door, after all."

Nino grinned. "And this one doesn't even have a window!" he said happily, but the mouths of Director Sho and Agent Ohno were far too busy just then to answer.

*

Sho followed through on doing all the planning in the weeks to come, but Nino did go with Aiba to buy himself a fancy suit. Every time he came out of the dressing room in a sample he said, "Do you want to strip me out of this slowly or quickly?" and Aiba, despite only very rarely being into guys, would reply something like, "We can take it slow!" or "You're like a panther, a _sexy_ panther," or, upon seeing the one Nino bought and had altered to fit him perfectly, "You'd better take it off fast or you'll have jizz all over it."

Nino also dropped a word in Jun's ear, and Jun took Ohno out suit shopping in turn. Ohno was sulky about it when Jun picked him up, but he came home glowing and went on a long tangent about eating hot dogs and going to an antique store where Jun had bought, Ohno said, something called a cedar shoe tree. He spent more time describing how it smelled than how it looked or what it was for, so Nino made him draw it, but when Sho came home he was more confused by the fact that Ohno and Nino didn't know what shoe trees were. Nino concluded loudly that they must only be for agency directors, upon which Sho shoved Nino off the couch.

Then came the night when Nino dressed at Aiba's, and Sho at Yoshida and Masuda's, and Ohno at home with Jun to help him, and they all met at a classy restaurant that made Nino feel kind of sick but had Ohno's eyes shining.

"Just this once," he said to Nino as they went in, and Nino nodded. He didn't think this was really Ohno's thing either, but what they were going for were the trappings, to help Ohno achieve something close to what he'd dreamed of as a starry-eyed teenager.

It seemed like Sho had tipped the restaurant staff off to their status as a trio of soulmates, which might have existed before but not that Nino knew of, so they were treated as romantic partners out on a special date just like Ohno deserved. Nino played along as suavely as he could, grinning at Ohno's endless confusion at having to taste the wine, or dip his fingertips in water, or eat sorbet between courses. Sho was in his element, having grown up in an affluent family even if he didn't see them often these days.

That was a thought for another day, because tonight was only about them.

Sho had hired a limousine to take them from the restaurant to the hotel, which was even more ridiculous than Nino had feared but made Ohno's face light up with amused excitement. They got in gingerly in their expensive suits and admired the roomy elegance and plush seats. During the drive they sipped champagne from delicate glasses, and Nino wondered if he was the only one who was already starting to get hard from anticipation.

Forget the suits, the food, the limo, the champagne, it had been _months_ since Nino had gotten fucked, and the idea of having Ohno there only made him feel like he might come in his exquisite pants before they even made it to the room.

That wasn't even taking into account all of his emotions, which he could only hope behaved themselves on what was really Ohno's night. But it was already too much, to be with his soulmates, these people he loved so much, and not have to worry about anything but what music to listen to in the limo or whether or not to order room service at the hotel when they'd just had dinner. It hadn't been that long, after all, since he'd thought he'd never have this ease even with Sho, and to try and get a semblance of it he'd shoved his feelings for Ohno aside so ruthlessly he'd almost missed out on this even more inordinate happiness. To have chosen them and then sparked anyway was a gift, but to have experienced what came after the happily-ever-after of sparking was even more wonderful in a real, messy way.

And then they were at the hotel, then in the elevator, and Ohno looked a little nervous but clearly distracted by the ornate mirrors everywhere he turned.

"Imagine doing it in here," he whispered, like that would stop the operator in her fancy uniform from hearing when she was right there. Nino tried to laugh, but he was too busy imagining it, and he wondered how receptive Sho would be to the idea of buying a gigantic mirror just so they could watch themselves have sex in it.

Then they were in their room for the night.

Nino was sure it was absolutely amazing, but he was so busy not giving a shit that he didn't notice. He did notice that it had a bed. That the bed had rose petals on it was something he'd think about later, because right then he would've had sex with his boyfriends on that sofa Aiba'd had in college with half the springs popped out of the cushions.

"If you'll excuse me, I'll shower first," Sho said, but he hesitated like he didn't want to miss anything while he was gone.

Nino looked at him and rubbed his chin like he was thinking very hard indeed. "Director Sho," he said gravely. "Isn't that a mission we should undertake together? I bet this room has a bath the size of our apartment, after all."

"Oh good," Ohno said, coming up to slide an arm around Nino's waist. It felt different from usual since they were both wearing such expensive clothes. "I'm not sure I can get out of this suit alone."

They got Ohno out of his suit first, making sure to tease and praise him for how good he looked both in and out of it, then it was Nino's turn, and Sho took charge of properly hanging up everyone's clothes while Nino got the bath ready. It gave Ohno a little space to start washing himself on his own, which he seemed to appreciate as a moment of normalcy amid all the purposeful specialness, and then Sho came over and sat down next to him to offer to scrub his back.

Nino thought it was nice, letting Ohno know they were still _them_ no matter what, but he still struck a ridiculous pose when he came over to Ohno's other side just to give bathing a little flourish.

The bath was heavenly, hot and fragrant and bone-meltingly relaxing. It didn't matter much, because Nino and Ohno and Sho spent all of about five minutes in it before they were ready to move from relaxing to something else entirely.

There was a moment when they got out, when Sho started towelling Ohno off and Nino joined in, and Ohno's laugh emerged from the vigorously utilized towels like he was purely happy, and everything would've been worth it just for that moment alone, Nino thought. He would've spent the money on the suit, and gotten through the fancy meal, and come all the way to this hotel room just for the sound of that laugh as Nino helped Sho fluff Ohno's hair back up into spikes.

All the same, he was really, really glad they weren't going to stop there.

When they got to the enormous bed, Nino started pulling off all the bedding except the sheets, but Ohno gave a little sigh at the wasted rose petals. Sho helped Nino flap the covers vigorously enough that at least some of the rose petals drifted down to the bed again.

Ohno grinned at them. He was naked but for a towel around his waist, and he'd been fairly self-conscious about being naked around them for long enough at the beginning that the sight of him comfortable and happy was the biggest turn-on for Nino of the whole night so far.

Then Sho pushed Nino down on the bed and reached out a hand to invite Ohno to join them, but Ohno was already clambering on up by the headboard, losing the towel as he went.

Sho looked down at Nino, eyes intent, and Nino wriggled out of his own towel before tossing it heedlessly across the room. Sho simply tugged at the knot of his until it dropped away.

Sho said to Ohno, "There's some stuff in the drawer right there, if you want to grab it," before leaning in and taking Nino's mouth like they hadn't kissed in months.

It did feel different--not because of the rose petals, or the silk sheets, or way Sho's skin smelled faintly of gardenia and honeysuckle from the bath. It felt different because of what they were going to do next, and because it was something that they hadn't done since getting together with Ohno. It felt different because Nino could hear Ohno humming to himself as he rummaged around in the drawer, and the thought of Sho preparing everything Ohno was seeing right then and making sure it got there before they did made Nino kiss him even more ardently.

When Ohno brought the unmarked bottle over, Sho moved them so they were all fully on the bed, and Nino had to admit that having silk sheets against his skin wasn't the worst feeling in the world. He had a moment's doubt about the silk and the lube together, but then he figured Sho was paying enough for this room that they could thoroughly ruin the sheets.

Then Sho was back on top of him, nudging his thighs open, but instead of kissing Nino he tugged Ohno in to kiss him instead. Nino occupied himself by stroking his fingers over Sho's soulmate mark, admiring the way the lights had been dimmed enough that the burgundy was a deep wine color but not dimmed so low Nino couldn't see every detail of Sho and Ohno kissing when he looked up.

Next thing Nino knew Sho was moving down his body, pressing kisses against him as he went, and Ohno moved shamelessly around for a better view. He ended up sprawled on his side with his head down by Nino's hips, watching as Sho wordlessly encouraged Nino to spread his legs wider by sliding forward with his shoulders between Nino's thighs.

Ohno's absorption in this meant his position was a thoughtless one, but Nino expended a lot of thought on it because it meant Ohno's own hips were up by Nino's head--and Ohno's cock was just about within reach of Nino's mouth.

He wasn't hard yet, but god, he was pretty, the curving length flushed with the head just starting to peek out, all framed by his strong thighs.

Nino licked his lips. "Oh-chan, can I?"

"Huh?" Ohno didn't turn his head at first, too busy watching Sho, who from the sound of it was coating his fingers as he got ready to open Nino up.

Nino was definitely getting hard, and all he wanted right then was to get his mouth on Ohno's pretty cock.

"Sure, yeah," Ohno said belatedly, clearly following Nino's line of sight. Nino leaned over and steadied with one hand so that he could take that first long lick. A moment after that, Sho's slick fingers were rubbing against him, making him gasp, and he heard Ohno say, "Oh wow," though he didn't know why and didn't particularly care just then.

Maybe it was because Ohno was distracted by Sho's fingers working into Nino, one by one, but he took longer to get hard than usual, and Nino took his time urging him to it, letting the weight of Ohno's dick fill his mouth as Sho got two fingers inside, tugging lightly at Ohno's balls in that way that always made him shiver as Sho started murmuring praise against his hip. Ohno was usually so quick that Nino didn't get to savor this part, and though he wasn't the type that liked to suck cock for hours or anything, he did relish the feeling of Ohno getting bigger against his tongue and how he got to hear the soft noises Ohno made as he tried to focus on Sho's movements instead of the wet heat of Nino's insistent mouth.

Sho's hands felt so good. Nino was lucky--he rather liked the overfull feeling of being prepared, and it was rarely hard for him to relax enough to enjoy things from there. It didn't hurt that Sho was attentive, and clever, and had these long, skinny fingers that seemed to find every nerve ending in Nino's body.

"I'm going to do that to you?" Ohno asked, quiet voice cutting off at the end as Nino did something particularly inspired with his tongue, and Sho made an amused, affirming noise. Nino squirmed, starting to feel impatient, and Sho, who had three fingers inside him, pressed in the tip of his pinkie just to make Nino crazy.

"Don't forget this is a two-part mission," Nino huffed, shifting his hips in an futile attempt to hurry Sho up. He was working Ohno with his hand, and it was strange that Ohno hadn't come a while back, so he decided to finish Ohno off while he waited for Sho to get a move on.

He wrapped his lips around the head of Ohno's cock and slid slowly, wetly down, making sure to drag his tongue lingeringly on his way back up as he stroked with his hand demandingly. Ohno made a noise and his body curled toward NIno on the bed, so Nino did it again, and again, until at last he pulled off to say, "Oh-chan, is everything all right?"

"Hmm?" Ohno said, then, "Don't I need to be hard for mission part two?"

Nino chuckled, though he was still a little confused by not having Ohno's come on his face already. "I'm trying to help you out with that, you idiot, so if you'd just let go already…"

"If you say so," Ohno said doubtfully, but he sounded pleased to be the first one to get to come, and after that Nino only had to stroke a few times and flick his tongue in that one particular way that made Ohno shudder and Ohno was coming all over the silk sheets and Nino's hand.

Nino spared a thought for the surely-ruined sheets, but it was more smug than anything else.

Like Sho had been waiting for Nino to let down his guard, he pulled out with his fingers, slowly and steadily, and asked, "Ready?"

Nino wasn't sure which of them Sho was asking. "Please," he said politely, just to make Sho grin at him, and Ohno said, "Let me just," all breathless and distracted, and he slid a little more down the bed to look at Nino between the legs.

There had been a time in Nino's life when he would have been embarrassed for Ohno to look at him directly like that when he was all ready and empty and wanting, but he'd gotten shameless, and he even clenched as if he had Sho's cock in there already just to see Ohno's eyes widen.

Sometimes it felt like Nino got everything he wanted. Right on cue, Sho lined up and pushed in, and Nino let out a little pained noise at the stretch.

"Slower?" Sho asked, but Nino shook his head. Trusting him to be honest, Sho pressed in relentlessly, filling Nino up after so long without this outlet he loved best.

Then Ohno reached up, looking absent-minded as he watched Sho's cock stretch Nino even further, and took Nino in hand. He stroked a few times lightly, then set up a rhythm that nearly had Nino's eyes rolling back in his head before Sho even really got started.

"I won't last like this," he panted, and Sho met his eyes as he bottomed out, his hands on the bed by Nino's shoulders.

"That's okay," he said. A corner of his mouth pulled up in a smirk. "There's a part two anyway, right?"

He pulled out of Nino and slammed back in, making Nino cry out, and Ohno's rhythm faltered on Nino's cock like he was too occupied observing them to focus on his own participation.

Nino didn't mind. To have gone so long and finally have Sho inside him again made him want to make it last, even if it put off something he anticipated as much as _part two._

Everything seemed to speed up after that as everyone involved forgot the night was special and gave themselves in one another. Nino hadn't forgotten how good Sho was at this, but it felt like Sho put in an extra effort with Ohno as their audience, and Ohno kept saying little things like _that noise is gross_ and _shit, I like that_ and _wait, could you do that again?_ It was like his filter, which was remarkably poor to begin with around Nino and Sho, had dropped away completely.

After a while he asked them to change position, and it should've sounded incongruously polite but instead came out all wanting and hopeful. He was getting hard again. Nino had to reach out, drag his fingers down Ohno's thigh, brush his thumb across the come-smeared slit of his cock.

Sho stilled in Nino, _all the way_ in Nino, and asked Ohno, "How would you like us?" His voice was low and barely controlled, and Nino shivered with his whole body in a way that made Sho grit his teeth.

"Maybe…" Ohno said consideringly, and the next few minutes involved more fumbling around without being touched properly than Nino could really handle right then, but he held out for Ohno's sake.

Then they were positioned, and Ohno sat back on his heels and looked at the picture they made with a glazed stare. "That's pretty good," he mumbled, pleased, and he wrapped a hand around his dick as if he didn't even realize he was doing it.

"I'm glad," Sho said, voice strained, and he leaned back against the headboard so that he could get a better grip on Nino's hips. He was kneeling there, and Nino had enjoyed the view quite a bit before he'd been added to the tableau: Sho was all lean muscle and gleaming skin, glowing from exertion, his cock hard and slick just waiting for Nino to take it back into his body where it belonged. He'd even had a couple of rose petals stuck to him, one on his knee and one on his ribs, which had pleased Ohno immensely.

But now Nino was there, sitting on Sho's cock and leaning his back against his chest, his knees on the bed to either side of Sho's, and all he could do was try to keep breathing. The position made him feel pinned, filled, unable to move in the best way. He wasn't sure how much Sho could thrust from this angle, but he thought if Sho didn't start fucking him again soon he might give up and just fuck down onto his boyfriend until he collapsed.

Sho adjusted position under him, making Nino moan, then dragged his hands from Nino's hips up to his shoulders to pull him even more flush back against him. He tweaked his nipples on the way back down and made him give a strangled squeak. The sight, or the noise, had Ohno moving closer to them, eyes intent, and he reached out and did the same thing with his own hands.

"God, Oh-chan," Nino said, and he had to pull him in for a kiss.

It didn't last long after that, because Nino was far gone already and now he was kissing Ohno like they were going to drown in each other. It made him particularly demanding, and when Nino got demanding like that Sho was very good at giving him exactly what he wanted.

Ohno swallowed each of Nino's moans, his hands coming back to Nino's nipples. He pulled away sometimes to kiss the spot on Nino's chin, or the helpless bob of his Adam's apple, or to crane his neck around and make Sho take a break from fucking Nino mindless in order to kiss him instead.

Then one of those clever hands trailed down Nino's body and took him in hand, which was something Ohno had picked up like he'd been made to touch Nino this way, and Nino hunched forward with his arms around Ohno's neck as Sho fucked into him faster and harder and Ohno worked him mercilessly enough that Nino took a moment to be glad he wasn't home with neighbors he had to greet in the hallway sometimes, because he couldn't stop himself from getting really, desperately loud.

Ohno disappeared from view, and Nino collapsed even more back against Sho, head lolling on Sho's shoulder, and felt Sho's hands hard on his hips, the motion of Sho inside him like he'd never stop, and Ohno's hand still tight on his dick. There was a touch on one of his thighs--Ohno's other hand--and Ohno pushed Nino's legs apart even wider, probably staring at how Sho was pushing into his body, and Nino teetered there, his legs not taking enough of his weight with how Ohno was spreading them. But Sho was strong, and not about to let Nino move away, and there was a moment right at the end there when Nino felt Sho hold some of his weight with his arms, lifting Nino's hips with his upper body strength as Nino's hands clutched beneath him at Sho's taut thighs to try to help.

Ohno made an impressed noise, and his hand sped up encouragingly.

Nino was just about done but he wasn't sure exactly where Ohno was and didn't want to surprise him, so he muttered a warning, "Oh-chan, soon--" and just like that Ohno's mouth enveloped him. Ohno didn't have to do much: he just let Sho's harsh movement thrust Nino's dick up into his mouth and slid one hand down, with languid curiosity, to touch the very tips of his fingers to where Nino and Sho were joined together.

Nino could feel that gentle touch like it was everywhere, and Ohno was doing the best he could with his mouth and his hand though Sho was making it difficult with how hard he was fucking Nino now--distantly, Nino knew from long experience that Sho was about to come.

He pulled one hand away from where he'd surely left marks on Sho's thigh and fumbled for Ohno. He found Ohno's jaw, his cheek, his hair, and he said hoarsely, "You're perfect."

Sho groaned, hips jerking, and Nino's fingers curled against Sho's skin, Ohno's hair, and teetered on the edge of coming like his body was so wrung out he almost couldn't finish. Then Sho stilled, and like it he'd been waiting for that Ohno slid down and swallowed around Nino's cock all the way back in his throat.

The noise Nino made just then probably echoed throughout the entire hotel, but he'd forgotten everything except Sho's strong arms holding him, Ohno's warm mouth overwhelming him, and the sensations of his own body as he lost himself with them.

He came back to lucidity lying on the bed. He was sprawled untidily, a sweaty mess of satisfaction, and he could've easily slept just like that and had no regrets.

Except when he turned his head, there were Sho and Ohno, kissing lazily beside him like they'd been doing it for hours.

Nino's voice was a sated rasp. "Did you guys do it already?"

Ohno turned to him, blinking reproachfully, and Sho took the time while Ohno was speaking to lay wet kisses on his neck. "We were waiting for you."

Sho laughed against Ohno's skin. "Satoshi, it's been maybe a minute."

Ohno only frowned harder at Nino like he couldn't believe he'd been made to wait that long.

"Well, here I am," Nino said proudly. "I might not be able to move, though, so I hope you don't mind if I just lie here and watch."

Ohno shrugged, amusement in the lines around his eyes, but Sho came over and helped Nino arrange himself a bit more comfortably. He had an ulterior motive, of course--Nino had been anticipating this moment--because when he was done he bent one of Nino's legs, and kissing that knee absently his eyes locked on the way his own come was trickling out of Nino's hole. It wasn't a sensation that Nino particularly enjoyed on its own, but he very much enjoyed the reaction it always got from Sho.

"Oh," came a surprised voice beside them, and Ohno crawled around to look as well. "Am I going to do that with you, too?"

"If you want," Sho said fondly, only a shade of nervousness in his voice, and Nino took a moment to be glad they'd gone and gotten themselves checked out months ago for just this sort of moment. "Honestly I'm not sure I can get it up again, but that doesn't change my commitment to this mission."

Nino sighed from up the bed, about to make a joke about this continued mission business, but Ohno said first, "Oh, I think we can do better by you than that."

Sho shrugged, not going to argue when there was no losing either way. He settled Nino back cozily and turned to Ohno, smiling.

Without preamble, Ohno took him by the shoulders and tumbled them both back down to lie on the sheets.

"I'm really glad this is your first time too, Sho-kun," he said, voice soft. "Let's take care of each other, okay?"

Staring up at him, Sho could only nod, but Nino could read everything in the light in his eyes.

As with everything that had come before, Nino felt no jealousy seeing that light directed at someone else, not when, as Sho had predicted years ago, that someone else was Ohno.

Ohno took his time with Sho, and he got Nino into it as well, though Nino refused to move more than he had to in order to see. He asked Nino questions, and adjusted himself according to the answers, and he asked Sho questions that Sho answered with a laugh in his eyes that wiped away most of his anxiety.

The times Nino had fingered Sho were few and far between, but he knew enough to encourage Ohno in his deliberate pace. Ohno kept exclaiming spontaneous bits of praise about how good Sho was, how good Sho _felt_ , and Sho's cheeks were cherry red by the time Ohno had one finger all the way inside him and was wiggling it around with an adorable look of concentration on his face.

Nino admired the sight of Ohno's sun-browned shoulders between Sho's pale thighs, the careful brush of Ohno's slender fingers against Sho's most sensitive places, the way Sho looked at them both with his heart in his eyes even as he gripped the stained sheets and tried to relax.

Ohno was fully hard again, but he didn't seem impatient; he just leisurely opened Sho up with his fingers and told him all about everything he was feeling and seeing and thinking. Nino had never heard Ohno talk at such length about anything except fish. Sho would probably be blushing about it for weeks.

Neither of them touched Sho's cock, and perhaps out of stubbornness he didn't either. If Nino had to bet, though, he was pretty sure Ohno was right--the careful, thorough way Ohno was exploring Sho just then gave Sho plenty of time to recover and an overwhelming amount of stimulation to help him along.

Finally Sho said, "I'm ready," voice rough with want, and Ohno gave a little nod with his eyes on his fingers where they disappeared inside Sho.

He pulled them out gingerly and wiped them on the sheets, then gave himself a few hard strokes before he blanketed Sho's body with his own and kissed him sweetly on the lips. Sho had been prepared for Ohno's dick, not for this tenderness all of a sudden, but Nino saw the moment when he forgot everything he was worried about and gave in to the rightness of kissing Ohno. Nino rolled onto his side and trailed a hand down Ohno's shoulders, his back, his flanks, before dropping it to touch Sho's scar. They were so beautiful together.

Ohno still didn't seem to be in any hurry, and it was Sho who finally gasped, " _Please._ " After kissing him one more time, Ohno sat back up and stroked his hands over Sho gently, from his neck to his stomach to his hips, then hooked his hands under Sho's knees and dragged him down the bed for better positioning.

He let go of Sho's legs then, but Sho was intent enough on what was going on that he let them splay there on his own, unselfconscious.

As Nino watched, Ohno lined up and started to nudge his way inside Sho's body.

Sho made a curious choked noise, and Ohno looked up quickly to check his expression, hips stilling, but he was met only with an embarrassed smile.

"It feels weird," Sho said slowly. "Weirder than your fingers, and like it shouldn't be possible, but then it is."

"Does it hurt?" Ohno asked, concerned, and Nino remembered that Ohno's first time in Sho's position had hurt. But then, so had his own--not everyone was lucky enough to have someone as patient and sweet as Ohno for their first time.

Sho shook his head. "Keep going, okay? I don't want you to stop."

Ohno's hips twitched forward a bit unconsciously, but he got himself under control and pushed in again gradually.

Nino figured once Ohno was all the way inside he had a few minutes of good thrusting in him at most, considering his endurance, and that was taking into account the fact that he'd come once already. Sho, whose beginnings at renewal had wilted from the strange feeling of Ohno pushing inside, might not come again after all.

Nino wasn't concerned either way. They had time to do everything they might want, many times over, and anything that didn't happen this time they could try for the next, or the time after that.

But then Ohno was stopping, and Sho was breathing hard, and Nino refocused his eyes lower to see they'd managed to come all the way together.

Ohno's hands came up to rest on Sho's stomach, then he planted one on the bed so he had leverage to use the other one to pull on Sho's cock. He was gentle, even coaxing, and his hips started to flutter against Sho in tiny motions that made Sho's breath come fast. It didn't hurt that he was using the arm with the soulmate tattoo to jerk Sho off.

Despite that alluring sight, Nino's eyes caught on Ohno's expression. A sudden suspicion made him say with nonchalance, "Why Oh-chan, you look like you could go all night."

Ohno rolled his shoulders out, still watching Sho's face. He said, all mellow like he wasn't balls-deep inside Sho, "Not if Sho-kun doesn't want me to."

Nino stared at him, then reached up the bed to grab a pillow and shove it under his head so he could still see without getting up while having both hands free to gesture about his outrage. "You've been holding out on us!"

Ohno's face did that cute flinchy thing as he tried to process what Nino was fussing about while he was pleasurably busy with Sho. "Have I?" he said, confused. His hand was steady on Sho's cock, and the flutters of his hips were a little harder now.

Sho, who'd been trying to work on his breathing but letting out various tiny, helpless noises, caught wind of the tone of the conversation and said breathlessly, "Huh?"

Ohno blinked at Nino, then looked down at Sho. "Should I stop?" he checked, and Sho said immediately, " _No._ Whatever he's complaining about can be fixed later, and if you stop now I'll--"

"Sho-chan," Nino said, holding onto his patience. "He's been holding out on us! He doesn't have the endurance of a gnat--just look at him!"

"What do you mean, endurance?" Ohno asked curiously.

"He means how fast you come," Sho said shortly, clearly not caring all that much right then when it was distracting Ohno from fucking him. Nino was glad that Sho was enjoying it enough that he was impatient for more, but he couldn't help wanting a straight answer from Ohno.

"Oh that," Ohno said, relieved. "Yeah, I can kinda do whatever. I mean, I was alone a long time? I used to play games with myself, see how fast I could come, or how long I could touch myself without finishing… Is that weird?"

"It's not weird," Nino ground out, "but why did you come as fast as you could with _us_?"

Ohno bit his lip. Now that he was catching on to what they were talking about, he looked like he was starting to get amused. Maybe even smug. But he sounded sincere when he said, "It seemed polite? Like you were working so hard to get me off, the least I could do was help out."

"Speaking of helping out," Sho interrupted. "Nino, couldn't this wait?"

Nino, about to argue, found himself staring at Ohno's hand on Sho's cock. He wasn't being gentle about it anymore, and Sho wasn't still recovering--he was so hard under Ohno's hand he looked like he could come again already.

Ohno really had overly talented hands.

Nino let his arms drop to the bed as he said to Ohno, "Fine, but I want to hear about these games later," and then to Sho, "I apologize, Director Sho, carry on."

Sho snorted, put-upon, but Ohno just stroked into him fully like he'd been waiting for Nino's issue to clear up already so he could get going. It surprised a choked cry out of Sho, and for the first time Nino felt like he might get hard again himself.

He lay there and watched, fascinated, as Ohno learned what Sho liked, as _Sho_ learned what Sho liked, and it was clear that Ohno was a fast learner. It wasn't long before Sho was knocking Ohno's hand away from his dick and saying desperately, "I'll come already, just… don't stop."

"Does it feel good?" Ohno asked, his soft tone at odds with his demanding hips.

Sho nodded, wordless. There was a pleased expression on Ohno's face, like he'd been pretty sure he was making Sho feel good but not sure enough that it wasn't a relief to get confirmation.

"It felt good for me too, if you couldn't tell," Nino said casually, like they were discussing the merits of anal sex, but that expression on Ohno's face meant he actually had to get up to a kneel so that he could take Ohno's face in his hands and kiss him.

Ohno made a surprised noise, but he was willing as ever, and after the first faltering moment he found his rhythm again in a way that made Sho moan. Nino had to bend to kiss Sho after that, and that's where he stayed, kissing Sho and murmuring praise into his ear as Ohno made him witless.

Or maybe not completely witless, because after a while Sho said, all gravelly with a hint of mischief, "Did I hear you say you could come when you wanted, Satoshi-kun?"

Nino stage-whispered, "Don't you mean Agent Ohno?" and Sho snapped irritably, "No, I really don't, _ahh._ " It seemed Ohno had found just the right angle.

"Yeah," Ohno said, but he wasn't as in control as before. He was sweaty and flushed, utterly gorgeous.

"Then shall we come together?" Sho asked politely. His voice was whispery with the attempt to keep it from coming out as a moan, but he made it work.

Nino laughed, "A new mission!" though he was a little distracted by the way Sho's soulmate mark had just tasted under his tongue. He licked Sho's shoulder again, considering, then bit down firmly.

He wondered aloud, "Do you think I could give you a hickey here?"

Sho and Ohno were busy having a conversation with their eyes, their bodies, and, belatedly, some more words.

"Yeah," Ohno said again, stubborn this time. "I can do that."

"I won't tell you when," Sho warned, but Ohno grinned suddenly. He stopped for a second, catching his breath, and his hand moved from Sho's bruised hips to draw teasingly at his dick.

"Nino will," he said smugly.

Nino's head jerked up from the imprint of his teeth on gleaming burgundy skin. "Huh?"

"You can tell, right?" Ohno said, rocking into Sho slowly like they were starting all over.

"Probably," he said, a little confused, and he looked down and saw Sho was starting to get impatient with this diversion. He was clearly so turned on he was about to explode from it. Involuntarily, Nino kissed him, but he still heard what Ohno said as Sho pushed insistently into Nino's mouth.

"It is our sacred mission, Agent Nino," and Nino laughed helplessly around Sho's tongue.

He didn't confirm anything with Ohno, didn't do anything for a long time after that but kiss Sho, but when he felt that little hitch in Sho's breath, he lifted his hand from where it had been resting on Sho's chest and gave Ohno a thumbs-up.

Ohno, who'd been delightfully noisy for quite a while, grunted in acknowledgement. He'd been working Sho over with his hand again in counterpoint to his dick, Nino could tell, and perhaps he'd been trying to keep himself just on the edge of coming so that he'd be able to follow through on Sho's half-joking proposal.

It almost worked--Sho cried out against Nino's mouth after another couple of seconds of Ohno fucking him harder than ever, and Nino kissed him affectionately as he fell to pieces. Then he heard a small noise from Ohno that was different from the others, and he turned his head in time to see Ohno go tense, make an amazingly happy face, and finally give his capable hips a rest.

"Yes," Sho said with feeling. "Mission complete."

"I was so close," Ohno said, but he didn't sound all that upset as he pulled out carefully and flopped down to pillow his head on Sho's chest across from Nino.

They lay there for several minutes, catching their breath together. Nino and Ohno laced their fingers together over Sho's ribs, their soulmate marks coiling around their wrists in pretty counterpoint to both their skin and Sho's.

At last Ohno mumbled fervently, "Let's do that again."

Nino felt Sho chuckle, and he squeezed Ohno's hand tightly. Sho said, "Whatever you want, Satoshi."

Ohno said contentedly, "Maybe after we take another bath."

It sounded like entirely too much moving to Nino, but it did end with his tired body in a hot bath, naked with the two people he loved most in the world.

He mimicked gently, "Whatever you want, Satoshi," and got painfully up from the bed in order to lug Ohno with him to the bathroom while Sho made noises about ordering clean sheets.

He'd probably order room service, too, and more champagne, and Nino didn't grudge it. Tonight was special, after all--for all of them.

*

_Eight months later._

As he had nearly every morning for the past year, Nino woke up next to the two loves of his life.

Sho was snoring, there was no other word for it, and Ohno had a little drool patch on his pillow next to his mouth. Nino was in the middle this time, all warm and cozy and content. Sho'd yanked the blankets over to his side sometime during the night, so though Nino himself was still covered he took a moment to drag them back over enough to cover Ohno as well, then brushed Ohno's hair gently off his forehead.

Ohno's hair was getting long again. He was starting to complain about it, which was a sure sign Sho would soon be making him an appointment to get it cut, but Nino enjoyed this look while it lasted.

There were still a few minutes before the alarm went off. Nino, as he'd tried to remember to do in the morning for the past year, closed his eyes and consciously focused on his gratitude that he got to spend so much of his life with these two people. He never wanted to take his happiness for granted, no matter how destined it had been. After all, it wasn't like there weren't unhappy soulmates in the world--making their happiness together took work, but Nino was more than willing to do it.

Then Ohno ended Nino's contemplation by rolling over and snuffling against Nino's neck, and even though he was still most of the way asleep, the arm that settled over Nino was also reaching for Sho.

The alarm went off, loud and irritating, and Sho smacked it silent without opening his eyes. Waiting for his boyfriends to wake up the rest of the way, Nino just smiled to himself and let his fingers play lightly over the ocean-blue swirls on Ohno's wrist.

As soon as he judged they were both pretty much awake, Nino said sweetly, "Sho-chan, you were snoring again."

"Must've been Satoshi," Sho lied shamelessly, his voice still garbled by sleep. "You know he's older than I am, right?"

Nino feigned surprise. "Is it your guys' old nostrils that are the problem here?"

"Hey," Ohno said tranquilly. "Leave my nostrils out of it."

"Speaking of nostrils, doesn't this apartment smell funny?" Sho said, turning toward them. He hadn't managed to get his eyes open but his hand still managed to find Ohno's.

His boyfriends snickered. Ohno said, "Your aroma diffusers..."

With ease, Nino expanded, "It's 'cause your aroma diffusers have only had a month to compete with the air filtering system. Don't worry, they'll seep into everything soon enough and we'll be the walking incense sticks we were before we moved."

Sho huffed, but Ohno said laughingly, "Sho-kun's still a walking incense stick. Last night I found a bit of lavender smell behind his knee--"

"But I haven't used lavender in any of the diffusers for months!" Sho protested, finally peeling one eye open to glare at them gruesomely, and Nino and Ohno cracked up.

Sho laughed too, and he edged even closer to the middle of the enormous bed so that he could tuck his chin against Nino's shoulder.

"I think I'll sleep in today," he said, all drowsy contentment.

Nino turned to drop a kiss on Sho's nose. "Jun-kun'll make you eat your tie if you're late."

"He won't know," Sho said stubbornly. "I don't have to go to the morning meeting, and besides, he's not the boss of me."

"Oooh," Ohno said admiringly. "Sho-kun, so brave."

"A bit lacking in survival instinct, though," Nino said, but Sho interrupted him.

"No, I looked on the hierarchical flow-chart and we're on the same level! I report to the board, not to Matsumoto-san, so technically--"

"Technically," Nino laughed. "But in reality--"

"In reality, Sho-kun is brave," Ohno said firmly, if a little sleepily. "And he looks good in a suit, and he's smart, and his hair does that swoopy thing that makes him look like a newscaster. A hot newscaster."

Sho said with some confusion, "Thank you…?"

"I'm going to visit my parents' grave next week, so I've been practicing," Ohno said, pleased.

"Ooh, what are you going to say about me?" Nino asked. He wrapped an arm around Ohno's shoulders even though Ohno seemed composed, because any excuse to touch Ohno was a good one in Nino's book. Just to be fair--which was another excellent excuse--he wormed his other arm around Sho and squeezed them both close, sighing blissfully.

"Your hair," Ohno said slowly, "doesn't swoop. But your eyes are really pretty."

Nino waited. "... Is that it?"

"You could say something about how he looks in glasses," Sho suggested. "Or how he always remembers to get the mail."

Nino drew in his breath sharply, trying not to laugh. "My blurb includes getting the mail?!"

"Ah, you are good at that," Ohno agreed like the question was settled.

"Thank you," Nino sighed. "I'm glad my soulmates recognize my talents."

"Always," Sho said soothingly, and Ohno nodded against Nino's chest.

They lay there for a moment, all cuddled together, and Nino tried to steel himself to leave the bed because he definitely wasn't planning to risk getting stuck with any more paperwork.

"Ah," Sho said, remembering something. "We made onigiri last night. That means we have an extra fifteen minutes before we have to leave, since breakfast is taken care of!"

"I thought you were going to brave Matsumoto-san's wrath anyway?" Nino laughed, and Sho shook his head and whispered, "Satoshi-kun said I'm smart so I'm trying to live up to it."

"Fifteen minutes?" Ohno echoed, a little late. "What should we do?"

"Oh-chan," Nino said fondly, and Sho simply got up on one elbow so he could lean over and kiss Ohno in explanation.

"No, I know that," Ohno said crossly, though he couldn't work up much irritation when he'd just been kissed so sweetly. "I mean, what _kind_. Fifteen minutes isn't a lot."

"Before we decide," Nino cut in, and he pulled Sho down for a morning kiss. This made Ohno want his own Nino kiss as well, and soon they were getting into it without deciding anything.

They'd gotten most of the way out of their clothes by the time Sho said with his eyes on Nino, "I feel like I got lots of attention last night," with that certain tone which made Nino hot all over. The night before had been one of the rare times that Sho bottomed for Nino, and though they tended to prefer it the other way around, when they wanted it that way, they _really_ wanted it that way.

"Yeah, that was good," Ohno said, skinning out of his shirt.

"Then it must be Oh-chan's turn to decide," Nino said blithely, and having passed the responsibility off he pulled Sho's underwear the rest of the way down and climbed on top of him for another deep kiss.

In reality, it was Ohno's turn a lot, but none of them grudged it.

In the part of his brain that was still measuring just how much time they could spare before he was risking disciplinary paperwork, Nino could picture the rest of their morning--how whatever Ohno chose, they'd forget themselves in the enjoyment of it and go for too long, then have to rush through their shower without nearly enough groping. Whichever onigiri Sho had made would have too little salt, or too much, but they'd merely pass those ones to Ohno since he'd pronounce them delicious regardless. Nino would have a moment, sometime before they left, where he'd look around this strange new apartment and wonder why the hell he'd moved out of the comfortable old one, but then whatever had jarred him would be overshadowed by Sho brushing his fingers against Nino's soulmate tattoo as he rushed back to grab a tie, or by Ohno doodling at the cluttered countertop and telling Nino he couldn't look yet because it was a comic about Sho as a newscaster who fought crime.

Or perhaps Nino would trip over an unpacked box and leave for work in a bad mood, but that wouldn't be the end of the world either, not when his life--all of his lives--included Sho and Ohno by his side. Even his worst days had the promise of falling asleep with his soulmates at the end of them.

Then Ohno was sliding in close to them, and Nino moved to the side so there was space for Ohno to drape himself over Sho's bare chest. He did so, then looked at them like he was waiting for something.

"No, no," Sho said, laughing, "you were supposed to decide!"

"But my brain's not awake yet and you guys're kissing all the time away," Ohno whined, and Sho laughed again as he pulled Ohno up to kiss him.

"We've got ten minutes left," Nino said imperiously, then flicked his boyfriends on the shoulders when they didn't jump to attention.

They broke their kiss reluctantly, but when they turned to look at him it was like they were just waiting to say yes.

Even so, Nino gave it some flair. "You may be frightened, thinking time is running out and there's nowhere to turn. But lo, here I am, the challenger of destiny, and I…"

Here he paused dramatically. Sho chuckled, Ohno widened his eyes, and Nino grinned at them.

"I choose--"


End file.
